BPX056: Winnie the Pooh and Iain Duncan-Smith Too

[Neon Ignition]

As discussed before, we have long running threads on both the UK/EU saga and America's years of woes but have little discussed some of the other troubling super powers within the developed world. Today we take a look at and discuss the growing dictatorial nation of China.

This thread launches as news comes out today that China has imposed sanctions on several UK politicans who have previously criticised China. Accusing them of spreading false information they ahve frozen the MPs assets in the country and barred them from entering the country. China is also more aggressively pursuing dominance of nearby locations.

The western nations are increasingly caught in a trap whereby they want to capitalise on the profit to be made from dealing with China whilst also struggling to balance that with the increasingly unacceptable behaviour of its leadership.

Do you see China continuing its dominance and growth in a relentless drive as the world's leader or do you foresee it becoming the new Russia and increasingly being at odds against the rest of the world causing it to lose its grip on power?

[Asura]

This thread launches as news comes out today that China has imposed sanctions on several UK politicans who have previously criticised China. Accusing them of spreading false information they ahve frozen the MPs assets in the country and barred them from entering the country. China is also more aggressively pursuing dominance of nearby locations.

Doesn't bother me all that much, as someone who has never been remotely wealthy enough to even consider having "assets" in a foreign country.

A bigger concern is the whole "neo-colonialism" thing; with China investing heavily in African businesses in order to hold financial sway over them and increase their global footprint. This isn't a judgement as such; the western nations did this for a century. Point is it arguably worked and now China's doing it too.

In gaming, this manifests as how Tencent and DeNA own so much now. A shocking amount of high profile western games and studios are actually owned by Chinese corporate interests now, and it does affect what they do & say.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm mostly wary of how easily China has walked into an ever stricter dictatorship and that we're still relatively early into it as well. In future years when these things tend to end rather badly that being a situation in a nation as large and powerful as China could lead to some really bad juju

[Asura]

I'm mostly wary of how easily China has walked into an ever stricter dictatorship and that we're still relatively early into it as well. In future years when these things tend to end rather badly that being a situation in a nation as large and powerful as China could lead to some really bad juju

I'm not sure how to cope with it, mentally, I mean. When you have a nation go rogue, start killing its citizens or doing terrible things, that's one thing... But it's usually a localised thing. You can point at that nation and see something is aberrant there. Strange.

The problem is that China's population is nearly 1/4 of all humanity, and due to population explosion, the living population of China is a reasonable chunk of all humans who have ever lived. And while not everyone in China approves/likes what their nation does (I'm sure opinions are as diverse as anywhere), when China's government does troubling (or even awful) things, they're on a global scale, and they make you wonder about humanity from a cosmic perspective. You can't point and say "it's okay, that's just not normal" when it's the government of 1 in 4 people on earth.

[Lebowski]

Its a weird situation where company's are specifically tailoring their goods for the Chinese market as theirs so much money to be made a capitalist society cant ignore this even if its at odds with its democratic and moral standpoints. its got to the point where capitalism is king and where their is money to be made then its OK to play fast and loose with your principles. Turning a blind eye to the mass re-education camps almost seems the norm now that the money is flowing in.

Take Hugo boss it's telling customers in the US that it has never used cotton form the Xinjiang region while also telling its Chinese customers that it supports that region and will continuse to buy Xinjiang cotton???

https://hongkongfp.com/2021/03/26/hugo-boss-tells-chinese-customers-it-will-continue-to-purchase-xinjiang-cotton-months-after-telling-us-news-outlet-it-has-never-used-it/

American filmmakers tailoring there films to the Chinese market is a worrying trend

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53676789

when South park gets on board with parodying this you know its gone too far, a recent episode has the kids trying to film a musical biopic and having parts of their story constantly re written to chase the lucrative Chinese market would be funny if it wasn't so close to reality. Bohemian rhapsody not only downplayed Freddie mercury sexuality in its original filming but completely cut them parts out for the Chinese market.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/mar/27/bohemian-rhapsody-chinese-cut-no-homosexuality-no-frocks-no-aids

[Golgo]

I think China are growing too massive for western nations to influence let alone counter or contain, and they have consolidated the west's economic dependency on them brilliantly. This is why China is so keen on snuffing out Hong Kong dissent, I believe, as civil war in a nation that large is obviously the only viable threat to CCP power. Maybe the wealth gap will one day finally ignite ordinary peoples' fear of the party. But I have Chinese colleagues in work who are afraid to go back for fear of being picked up and disappeared - that's what the regime has become. Their human rights and pursuit of genocide are utterly abhorrent, likewise the way they defend their bullishness on post-colonial terms on the basis that wrongs were done to them in the past: the west were assholes and now it's our turn. Great philosophy. One thing that puzzles me a little is the silence from Muslim nations about the Uighur genocide. They seem not to give one tiny **** about it. Presumably trade is worth more.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

China is clever and a powerhouse of industry, but that industry has been passed to them from countries that no longer want to focus on industry and are developing intellectual property instead. Everything has 'made in China' on it, but eventually China will want to enter into scientific markets, like Japan and South Korea (Samsung, Sony and other markets). I'm not sure they can do both.

[Golgo]

I don't know about whether they can do both, but I do know western universities are absolutely rammed solid with government-funded Chinese PhD students and postdocs, and these universities love 'em because they can charge 'em top whack.

[Asura]

Their human rights and pursuit of genocide are utterly abhorrent, likewise the way they defend their bullishness on post-colonial terms on the basis that wrongs were done to them in the past: the west were assholes and now it's our turn.

They're not the only ones. Similar stuff in Brazil; Bolsonario defends the cutting down of the Amazon saying that Europe was once covered by dense forest, but the Europeans cut it all down - and claims that now it's his country's turn, and if they want the forests to stay, the rest of the world should pay what Brazil could earn from the land.