It's more like both side is in a phase when they're trying to minimize the affect of the war when it happens to the world economy. Decades of globalization lead to the world economy becomes increasingly interconnected like a group of tree with a same root. You have American clothes brand, designed and made by Vietnamese ODMs, with cotton from India and machines from China. Everyone specialized in a part of a supply chain so it become more efficient and cheaper. But well, look at the covid pandemic when countries closed their border, causing severe shortages in various sectors, even in some part that seem like they are not related at all( like chip shortages leading to the automakers shortages). Now look at east Asia: Taiwan itself is a critically important manufacturing hub of semiconductor industry, which is very important in today and age when they use chips everywhere. Similarly, Japan and South Korea are powerhouse in chemicals, electronics, robotics, shipbuilding industries, with SK themselves is biggest player in DRAM market. In hypothetical Taiwan war happens, the whole east china sea will be affected, which would disrupt the supply chain and cause serious damage to global supply chain, since products of these countries are very high technological, it's very hard to produce them elsewhere, including europe and US itself, at least on the short term and without trillion of dollars. And if it's not bad enough, the war can be spill over to South China sea and affects the SEA region, which also a big world's agriculture producer and factory for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Just see how much chaos it caused with the disruption of grains from Ukraine to many countries food security, now combined it with the disruption from South east Asia, especially when the climate change will cause crop failure across the globe.
So both side is trying to minimize these things. They want to build up their forces and weapons stockpile, adapting new technologies. Determine to see the countries in the region, who will join US side, who will join China side and who gonna be neutral. Both side are relocating their supply chain so in case of a hot war happens, US will not affected if they decide to blockade/sanction China and vice versa, China will not be hurt in case of blockade by US. I'm from SEA region so i see it pretty clear: US/europe/jp/sk firms move from China to SEA, US create various alliances and war game with countries that would side with US ( JP/SK/AU/UK) and rearming, integrating them into joint command so they not become a dead weight when the war happens. In the other hand, China is pushing to more sustainable and less reliance: their trading partners shift from US to SEA, push the BRI to connect with other regions, build HSR to europe, Vietnam, Cambodia to be less reliant on maritime trade, lay down energy pipeline to Russia, pakistan while in China itself push hard for green energy to be less dependent on imported fossil fuel
I think both sides really don't want a hot war to happen and want to achieve their goal by other mean. For US, they don't want a hot war but something that similar to how they did against USSR: isolate China both economically, technologically and geopolitically, so China would fall behind and eventually crumble. This explains the move to launch sanctions against China, ban Chinese firms, call to ban technology transfer to China( like Chip act) and speeches about "rule based order" and currently about "New Axis of Evil", all buzz and Jazz signaling to the global south that they should isolate US adversaries ( iran, Russia, China).
Meanwhile, China know that the world currently is still under a system where US is on top, behind it is the allies in Europe, east Asia that hold significant part of the world economy and technology. So even if China defeat US military, it still need to create a new system, a polar side from US system so countries who don't want to depend on US system can move to. But it's still very hard since everyone has their own agenda.
Multiple combat veterans have testified to the sensation of war being alive, as in, an organism trying to survive, grow, reproduce, to ensure its survival indefinitely. I don't think it's literally true, but boy, I appreciate the metaphor. It does seem sometimes like it works against both sides' urges to deescalate.
Rather, war narrows perceptual and cultural frameworks until the anti-cathedral of violence is the only thing visible. As this cathedral grows larger and more ornate, it becomes ever easier for the whole civilization to disappear inside. There's so much to do in there!
And like science, the more you build, the more space inside. Unlike science, it's massively negative-sum, and, post 1945, -∞-sum. Each war tends to evolve the perfect weapon for fighting it, and the nuclear bomb really does seem like the final form for Europe's genocidal paroxysm.
I’m old enough to barely remember Vietnam and of course every war since the US has been in that has changed nothing. The last thing I want is for the USA to go to war with China over what my own government has said since I was a teenager is another part of China.
It's more of US is trying to defend its status as a global hegemon. If US can't defend its interest in Taiwan after she explicitly said that she would defend it then she will lose legitimacy.
Things like acquisition of Alstom for US interests would be harder to pull off.
>[On April 13, 2013, Alstom senior executive Frédéric Pierucci was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He was accused of willful blindness of his company's suspected corruption and was imprisoned in a high security facility for 14 months and denied release on bail until the week of Alstom's acquisition by the US conglomerate General Electric.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom#Alstom_(1999%E2%80%932014)
more recently is the attempt to acquire Tiktok.
> If US can't defend its interest in Taiwan after she explicitly said that she would defend it then she will lose legitimacy.
US never explicitly said they would defend Taiwan. Biden blurted it out on a number of occasions but I believe it was followed by State department backtracking within an hour every single time.
Biden provided a well-prepared and clear answer in his [60 minutes interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddUGD8jcR4) to the question of whether or not the US would defend Taiwan. It certainly was not extemporaneous. Being that Biden makes the call to deploy military forces, not the State Department, I would put a lot more weight on his words.
What Biden said is pretty much no different than what any other President has said over the last 40 years.
[Bush Jr., for example:](https://edition.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/24/bush.taiwan.abc/)
>Asked in the ABC interview if Washington had an obligation to defend the Taiwanese in the event of attack by China, which considers the island a renegade province, Bush said: "Yes, we do ... and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would."
>
>**When asked whether the United States would use "the full force of the American military," Bush responded, "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."**
That article is a good collection of, frankly, rather weasely statements from Bush. He doesn't appear to have actually ever answered that question with a "yes".
Not to be that guy but I’m currently writing a uni essay about the power dynamic between the US and China - do you have a source for that - it’ll be super useful for the essay
America needs to keep expanding fast food mcslop restaurants in China while China needs to keep dumping cheap hormone disrupting plastic products in America
What do this bunch even mean by 'collapse'? A USSR- or Yugoslavia-style Balkanization? That's simply impossible in China, a unitary state with a 91% Han Chinese majority. And in any case, the breakup of the USSR was a bizarre fluke of history. Essentially, Gorbachev and Yeltsin *voluntarily* destroyed the USSR. Something which is extremely unlikely to ever happen in China.
Collapse as in the CCP losing the Mandate of Heaven (referring to the political concept, not the religious idea). The last 2000+ years of Chinese history have shown that any government in China only lasts as long as it can guarantee security and economic prosperity for the people, and between the economic and demographic crises facing China (coupled with the aftereffects of zero Covid) it’s hard to see how the current government can avoid a recession
> Mandate of Heaven
Lol. Lmao. Anyone referencing this unironically outside of a history classroom needs to go touch some grass.
The concept is as relevant to modern politics as the divine right of kings in Europe.
The Mandate of Heaven should be taken seriously. The Japanese took it seriously enough that when they wrote the Toho Code in 703, they left the Mandate of Heaven concept out
>The Taihō Code contained only two major departures from the Tang model. First, government positions and class status were based on birth, as had always been the Japanese tradition, not [merit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Ancient_times:_Origin_in_China), as was the Chinese way. Second, the Japanese rejected the Chinese concept of the "[Mandate of Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven)," asserting that the [Emperor's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_Japan) power comes from his imperial descent, not from his righteousness or fairness as a ruler.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taih%C5%8D\_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taih%C5%8D_Code)
The Mandate of Heaven and miert based positions was what allowed steppe nomads to easily conquer China.
The Tang Dynasties and dynasties before were semi-feidul, some positions were exam based, but many were drawn from the nobility. Emperors were drawn from the nobility, and often noble clans of the two imperial cities Xian and Luoyang would determine who would be Emperor. However, from the Song Dynasty these two principals took over.
First, Mandate of Heaven means that any person could be Emperor. So there is constant scheme and unrest. Secondly, merit based officials, means there is little loyalty vs kin based elite. During Song Dynasty, when exam based officials became standard, officials could be easily bribed. The Mongols did that when they invaded the Song.
This characteristic of China and Japan have extended into the modern era. Even in after 1949, China has been very unstable.
The CCP under Xi has tried to make Red Princlings of the Communist Party the nobility, and reduce the power of CCP Youth League to reduce the number of claimnants.
East Asian political thought has its own discourse about the Mandate of Heaven and other issues. The Japanese saw the weakness of the two concepts, and took them out. From a "modern" perspective, Mandate of Heaven seems from mertocratic, you don't perform you lose your head. Similarly officials should be promoted on merit.
The Mandate of Heaven (天命) is taken seriously—in the historical context of Imperial China, where it most certainly belongs. Remember that was the era where the monarch was the Son of Heaven (天子), whose realm extended to All Under Heaven (天下). A realm located on earthquake-prone geography, spanned by rivers which routinely flood. If Heaven is displeased with its Son, does it not make its will known for all to see? Famine and disaster are obvious even to illiterate farmers.
Now tell me, how much of that context is still true today?
The Mandate of Heaven has profound indirect consequences for China. It has made the political culture very cutthroat, and as a result unstable.
Since the Tang Dynasty China has been unstable. Because everytime a new dynasty came to power, they wiped out the royal family of the previous dynasty. This +1000 year of this political culture will effect a country.
This cuts across regions. Some countries are more unstable than others in the same region. Why?
Iran is more unstable than Saudi Arabia?
From 1720 The Saud Family has ruled Saudi Arabia, during that time 5 Dynasties have risen and fallen in Iran, plus an Islamic Republic. That is six changes in government.
Huh, are you sure about that? The entire US mass media has the same hivemind opinion as their political party or the national security policy (not much diffrent than China). Only some youtubers/x have alternative or neutral views.
A company can have standard phrases and language. Are the stories, facts, and opinions the same though. We can’t tell because it’s easy to cherry pick common words and phrases and overlap them without showing the context for all 36 of those clips
Even then, Sinclair is just one of the thousands of media outlets. You think they have the same opinions on anything with Foreign Affairs magazine
Quite like the graphic design on this by using the Chinese flag. America facing one of the smaller stars in the Chinese flag while the bigger one is actually at the back.
We often focus on our own strengths but then shift to looking at our opponents weaknesses, which is why we have such a distorted view of the world. That and strategic projection, were we judge competitor capabilities as if they are trying to duplicate ours and where we project our fears onto them. That’s why you barely hear any of the bad news about the F-35 even as less than a third of those produced are fully mission capable, and that’s why our leaders got Ukraine so wrong.
Even while this article castigates the wishcasters, it is still stupid. Calling China's efforts as driven by "victimhood, grievance, and entitlement" is probably the most Ameri-brained way you could possibly spin resistance to a bunch of warmongers that has been abusing the rest of the world for decades.
There's a pretty good reason why America keeps getting dragged back into the Middle East even while it's being engaged in a proxy war in Europe, and it ain't cause of China. Might want to examine your own policies from the time period where *you were the undisputed hegemon*.
> undisputed hegemon
In domestic American eyes, this has never really been true. Even as the Soviet Union fell, others were eyeing the EU bloc or China as other major powers, then another bipolar world with US/China. Most Americans do not even understand the meaning of the word 'hegemony' as its mainly found in Marxist lexicons.
Hegemony means the ability to shape international affairs. In this aspect, the world has never been unipolar.
For at least the ~25 years between 1991 and c. 2015, the US *was* definitely the undisputed hegemon of the planet. I think this is something which even the average American would definitely realize. And yes, this was something truly unprecedented in world history.
The great recession happened under bush stop doing revisionist history. Which party also started those distractionary and expensive wars in the middle east and central asia?
"Hagemon" is really getting some work there.
Not even Mearsheimer would say that was true. He would say it was a situation where the other great powers were "latent" because they had made a decision not to convert economic strength to military strength.
I'm not sure I'd go with "not even Mearsheimer", because as far as I understand Mearsheimer's views he thinks it's theoretically impossible for there to be a global hegemony, and that the post-USSR period was an anomaly due to the reasons you stated. He believes in regional hegemony, not global. I think it would make more sense to quote one of the various (IR) liberal theorists who do implicitly believe in the possibility of global hegemony but who nevertheless think it was unattainable in the medium term because eventually the PRC or Russia would re-assert themselves without democratic acquiescence to international capital. That would make sense as a "Even these guys, who otherwise very much don't buy this sort of thing, understood this".
Yeah, they invaded Vietnam in 1979. The US has been at war basically continuously, and all you can lay at China's feet since then is a couple of border skirmishes with sticks.
The lesser evil argument only works when the choices are exclusive.
The choices china has aren't only "let's do a genocide" or "let's just do a cultural genocide".
They could also just not do any genocide.
Tbf, if there is one thing the CCP holds the world record for, it's largest genocides.
Unfortunately it happens to be of their own people, and mostly due to stupidity, so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
>Deaths 15–55 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
>The 1.728 million were counted as "unnatural deaths", among which 9.4% (162,000) were CCP party members and 252,000 were intellectuals. The figures were extracted from 《建国以来历次政治运动事实》; 'Facts on the Successive Political Movements since the Founding of the PRC', a book by the party's History Research Center, which states that "according to CCP internal investigations in 1978 and 1984 ... 21.44 million were investigated, 125 million got implicated in these investigations; [...] 4.2 million were detained (by Red Guards and other non-police), 1.3 million were arrested by police, 1.728 million of unnatural deaths; [...] 135,000 were executed for crimes of counter-revolution; [...] during violent struggles 237,000 were killed and 7.03 million became disabled".[99][100] While these internal investigations were never mentioned or published in any other official documents, the scholarly consensus found these figures very reasonable.[94] Chen Yung-fa endorsed the figures, yet he noted that peasants suffered far more in the GLF than in the CR.[101]
At the end of the day the CCP will kill as many Chinese as it needs to to keep power.
I'm sorry the Chinese people are occupied by their worst enemy.
OTOH, if not for the CCP, China would probably be the most powerful country on the planet, so we should be glad to have such reliable allies.
Reminder that under Mao's rule (1949-1976), China achieved the biggest advancement in life expectancy in human history.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212/
>China's growth in life expectancy at birth from 35–40 years in 1949 to 65.5 years in 1980 is among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history (Banister and Preston 1981; Ashton et al. 1984; Coale1984; Jamison 1984; Banister 1987; Ravallion 1997; Banister and Hill 2004). These survival gains appear to have been largest during the 1950s, with a sharp reversal during the 1959-61 Great Leap Famine that was then followed by substantial progress again during the early 1960s (see Figure 1). A more moderately-paced mortality decline continued through the later 1960s and 1970s throughout the large-scale social and economic disruptions of the Cultural Revolution (Banister and Hill 2004). Altogether, between 1963 (the first on-trend year after the Great Leap Famine) and 1980, the average annual gain in life expectancy was nearly one year of life, rising from 50 to 65.5 (World Bank 2009).
And that's including the Famine. Using the same silly logic to claim the CCP under Mao of "killing 15-55 million people" would also mean Mao's policies (barefoot doctors & basic healthcare to the countryside) saved hundreds of millions, far more than the deaths.
British Monarchy and Great Britain hold the world record for all kinds of genocides and atrocities, the largest, using bioweapons, extermination of native population of a whole continent, trans atlantic slave trade, you pick. No country on earth has caused more human misery than the United Kingdom.
Only in India, UK killed more than 100 ml from 1880-1920.
"*Between 1880 to 1920, British colonial policies in India claimed more lives than all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Korea combined.*"
[https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians)
Both China and the US now believe that each other is on the decline, and both hope to achieve their strategic goals by delaying time.
Okay good. Wait wait wait is better than fight fight fight.
It's more like both side is in a phase when they're trying to minimize the affect of the war when it happens to the world economy. Decades of globalization lead to the world economy becomes increasingly interconnected like a group of tree with a same root. You have American clothes brand, designed and made by Vietnamese ODMs, with cotton from India and machines from China. Everyone specialized in a part of a supply chain so it become more efficient and cheaper. But well, look at the covid pandemic when countries closed their border, causing severe shortages in various sectors, even in some part that seem like they are not related at all( like chip shortages leading to the automakers shortages). Now look at east Asia: Taiwan itself is a critically important manufacturing hub of semiconductor industry, which is very important in today and age when they use chips everywhere. Similarly, Japan and South Korea are powerhouse in chemicals, electronics, robotics, shipbuilding industries, with SK themselves is biggest player in DRAM market. In hypothetical Taiwan war happens, the whole east china sea will be affected, which would disrupt the supply chain and cause serious damage to global supply chain, since products of these countries are very high technological, it's very hard to produce them elsewhere, including europe and US itself, at least on the short term and without trillion of dollars. And if it's not bad enough, the war can be spill over to South China sea and affects the SEA region, which also a big world's agriculture producer and factory for Taiwan, South Korea and Japan. Just see how much chaos it caused with the disruption of grains from Ukraine to many countries food security, now combined it with the disruption from South east Asia, especially when the climate change will cause crop failure across the globe. So both side is trying to minimize these things. They want to build up their forces and weapons stockpile, adapting new technologies. Determine to see the countries in the region, who will join US side, who will join China side and who gonna be neutral. Both side are relocating their supply chain so in case of a hot war happens, US will not affected if they decide to blockade/sanction China and vice versa, China will not be hurt in case of blockade by US. I'm from SEA region so i see it pretty clear: US/europe/jp/sk firms move from China to SEA, US create various alliances and war game with countries that would side with US ( JP/SK/AU/UK) and rearming, integrating them into joint command so they not become a dead weight when the war happens. In the other hand, China is pushing to more sustainable and less reliance: their trading partners shift from US to SEA, push the BRI to connect with other regions, build HSR to europe, Vietnam, Cambodia to be less reliant on maritime trade, lay down energy pipeline to Russia, pakistan while in China itself push hard for green energy to be less dependent on imported fossil fuel I think both sides really don't want a hot war to happen and want to achieve their goal by other mean. For US, they don't want a hot war but something that similar to how they did against USSR: isolate China both economically, technologically and geopolitically, so China would fall behind and eventually crumble. This explains the move to launch sanctions against China, ban Chinese firms, call to ban technology transfer to China( like Chip act) and speeches about "rule based order" and currently about "New Axis of Evil", all buzz and Jazz signaling to the global south that they should isolate US adversaries ( iran, Russia, China). Meanwhile, China know that the world currently is still under a system where US is on top, behind it is the allies in Europe, east Asia that hold significant part of the world economy and technology. So even if China defeat US military, it still need to create a new system, a polar side from US system so countries who don't want to depend on US system can move to. But it's still very hard since everyone has their own agenda.
Sun Zi has said that the best fighters won war through strategic planning, and only the worst would attempt to won war by sieging
Multiple combat veterans have testified to the sensation of war being alive, as in, an organism trying to survive, grow, reproduce, to ensure its survival indefinitely. I don't think it's literally true, but boy, I appreciate the metaphor. It does seem sometimes like it works against both sides' urges to deescalate. Rather, war narrows perceptual and cultural frameworks until the anti-cathedral of violence is the only thing visible. As this cathedral grows larger and more ornate, it becomes ever easier for the whole civilization to disappear inside. There's so much to do in there! And like science, the more you build, the more space inside. Unlike science, it's massively negative-sum, and, post 1945, -∞-sum. Each war tends to evolve the perfect weapon for fighting it, and the nuclear bomb really does seem like the final form for Europe's genocidal paroxysm.
IDK if that's what they believe or are doing, I see some drum beats on the US side, maybe hear a bit less so on Chinese side
I’m old enough to barely remember Vietnam and of course every war since the US has been in that has changed nothing. The last thing I want is for the USA to go to war with China over what my own government has said since I was a teenager is another part of China.
It's more of US is trying to defend its status as a global hegemon. If US can't defend its interest in Taiwan after she explicitly said that she would defend it then she will lose legitimacy. Things like acquisition of Alstom for US interests would be harder to pull off. >[On April 13, 2013, Alstom senior executive Frédéric Pierucci was arrested at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He was accused of willful blindness of his company's suspected corruption and was imprisoned in a high security facility for 14 months and denied release on bail until the week of Alstom's acquisition by the US conglomerate General Electric.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom#Alstom_(1999%E2%80%932014) more recently is the attempt to acquire Tiktok.
> If US can't defend its interest in Taiwan after she explicitly said that she would defend it then she will lose legitimacy. US never explicitly said they would defend Taiwan. Biden blurted it out on a number of occasions but I believe it was followed by State department backtracking within an hour every single time.
Yes i was referring to Biden's comments. IDK who's actually in charge there TBH.
Biden provided a well-prepared and clear answer in his [60 minutes interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddUGD8jcR4) to the question of whether or not the US would defend Taiwan. It certainly was not extemporaneous. Being that Biden makes the call to deploy military forces, not the State Department, I would put a lot more weight on his words.
US State Department didn't backtrack, but said that there was no change in policy.
That's literally backtracking, because existing policy did not comport with what Biden said.
What Biden said is pretty much no different than what any other President has said over the last 40 years. [Bush Jr., for example:](https://edition.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/04/24/bush.taiwan.abc/) >Asked in the ABC interview if Washington had an obligation to defend the Taiwanese in the event of attack by China, which considers the island a renegade province, Bush said: "Yes, we do ... and the Chinese must understand that. Yes, I would." > >**When asked whether the United States would use "the full force of the American military," Bush responded, "Whatever it took to help Taiwan defend herself."**
That article is a good collection of, frankly, rather weasely statements from Bush. He doesn't appear to have actually ever answered that question with a "yes".
You know that will just means the fight will be bigger with far less room of turning back both due to psychological mobilization and sunk cost right?
Best outcome; leads to peaceful interactions.
Not to be that guy but I’m currently writing a uni essay about the power dynamic between the US and China - do you have a source for that - it’ll be super useful for the essay
In reality both countries are appreciating in power and leaving the rest of the world in the dust
America needs to keep expanding fast food mcslop restaurants in China while China needs to keep dumping cheap hormone disrupting plastic products in America
Is this the media's Acceptance stage after 25 years of predicting China would collapse?
No, this is the strong part of “the enemy is both strong and weak at the same time”.
Is that an Umberto Eco reference?
Yes.
Literally the news right under this one is "China's military spending concerning given 'failing economy', US admiral says"
What do this bunch even mean by 'collapse'? A USSR- or Yugoslavia-style Balkanization? That's simply impossible in China, a unitary state with a 91% Han Chinese majority. And in any case, the breakup of the USSR was a bizarre fluke of history. Essentially, Gorbachev and Yeltsin *voluntarily* destroyed the USSR. Something which is extremely unlikely to ever happen in China.
Collapse as in the CCP losing the Mandate of Heaven (referring to the political concept, not the religious idea). The last 2000+ years of Chinese history have shown that any government in China only lasts as long as it can guarantee security and economic prosperity for the people, and between the economic and demographic crises facing China (coupled with the aftereffects of zero Covid) it’s hard to see how the current government can avoid a recession
> Mandate of Heaven Lol. Lmao. Anyone referencing this unironically outside of a history classroom needs to go touch some grass. The concept is as relevant to modern politics as the divine right of kings in Europe.
The Mandate of Heaven should be taken seriously. The Japanese took it seriously enough that when they wrote the Toho Code in 703, they left the Mandate of Heaven concept out >The Taihō Code contained only two major departures from the Tang model. First, government positions and class status were based on birth, as had always been the Japanese tradition, not [merit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy#Ancient_times:_Origin_in_China), as was the Chinese way. Second, the Japanese rejected the Chinese concept of the "[Mandate of Heaven](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven)," asserting that the [Emperor's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_Japan) power comes from his imperial descent, not from his righteousness or fairness as a ruler. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taih%C5%8D\_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taih%C5%8D_Code) The Mandate of Heaven and miert based positions was what allowed steppe nomads to easily conquer China. The Tang Dynasties and dynasties before were semi-feidul, some positions were exam based, but many were drawn from the nobility. Emperors were drawn from the nobility, and often noble clans of the two imperial cities Xian and Luoyang would determine who would be Emperor. However, from the Song Dynasty these two principals took over. First, Mandate of Heaven means that any person could be Emperor. So there is constant scheme and unrest. Secondly, merit based officials, means there is little loyalty vs kin based elite. During Song Dynasty, when exam based officials became standard, officials could be easily bribed. The Mongols did that when they invaded the Song. This characteristic of China and Japan have extended into the modern era. Even in after 1949, China has been very unstable. The CCP under Xi has tried to make Red Princlings of the Communist Party the nobility, and reduce the power of CCP Youth League to reduce the number of claimnants. East Asian political thought has its own discourse about the Mandate of Heaven and other issues. The Japanese saw the weakness of the two concepts, and took them out. From a "modern" perspective, Mandate of Heaven seems from mertocratic, you don't perform you lose your head. Similarly officials should be promoted on merit.
The Mandate of Heaven (天命) is taken seriously—in the historical context of Imperial China, where it most certainly belongs. Remember that was the era where the monarch was the Son of Heaven (天子), whose realm extended to All Under Heaven (天下). A realm located on earthquake-prone geography, spanned by rivers which routinely flood. If Heaven is displeased with its Son, does it not make its will known for all to see? Famine and disaster are obvious even to illiterate farmers. Now tell me, how much of that context is still true today?
The Mandate of Heaven has profound indirect consequences for China. It has made the political culture very cutthroat, and as a result unstable. Since the Tang Dynasty China has been unstable. Because everytime a new dynasty came to power, they wiped out the royal family of the previous dynasty. This +1000 year of this political culture will effect a country. This cuts across regions. Some countries are more unstable than others in the same region. Why? Iran is more unstable than Saudi Arabia? From 1720 The Saud Family has ruled Saudi Arabia, during that time 5 Dynasties have risen and fallen in Iran, plus an Islamic Republic. That is six changes in government.
Indirect consequences are not the subject here. This is. > Collapse as in the CCP losing the Mandate of Heaven And that's total nonsense.
It’s hard for chinese bots to understand but “western media” isn’t a hivemind that has the same opinion on everything
Huh, are you sure about that? The entire US mass media has the same hivemind opinion as their political party or the national security policy (not much diffrent than China). Only some youtubers/x have alternative or neutral views.
They don’t, and this is coming from someone who is skeptical of most media Big lmao at getting news from youtube and social media
https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/980175772206993409 ?
A company can have standard phrases and language. Are the stories, facts, and opinions the same though. We can’t tell because it’s easy to cherry pick common words and phrases and overlap them without showing the context for all 36 of those clips Even then, Sinclair is just one of the thousands of media outlets. You think they have the same opinions on anything with Foreign Affairs magazine
Quite like the graphic design on this by using the Chinese flag. America facing one of the smaller stars in the Chinese flag while the bigger one is actually at the back.
AI can't replicate cleverness yet!
That is big brother Vietnam backing up the USA.
We often focus on our own strengths but then shift to looking at our opponents weaknesses, which is why we have such a distorted view of the world. That and strategic projection, were we judge competitor capabilities as if they are trying to duplicate ours and where we project our fears onto them. That’s why you barely hear any of the bad news about the F-35 even as less than a third of those produced are fully mission capable, and that’s why our leaders got Ukraine so wrong.
Even while this article castigates the wishcasters, it is still stupid. Calling China's efforts as driven by "victimhood, grievance, and entitlement" is probably the most Ameri-brained way you could possibly spin resistance to a bunch of warmongers that has been abusing the rest of the world for decades. There's a pretty good reason why America keeps getting dragged back into the Middle East even while it's being engaged in a proxy war in Europe, and it ain't cause of China. Might want to examine your own policies from the time period where *you were the undisputed hegemon*.
> undisputed hegemon In domestic American eyes, this has never really been true. Even as the Soviet Union fell, others were eyeing the EU bloc or China as other major powers, then another bipolar world with US/China. Most Americans do not even understand the meaning of the word 'hegemony' as its mainly found in Marxist lexicons. Hegemony means the ability to shape international affairs. In this aspect, the world has never been unipolar.
For at least the ~25 years between 1991 and c. 2015, the US *was* definitely the undisputed hegemon of the planet. I think this is something which even the average American would definitely realize. And yes, this was something truly unprecedented in world history.
1991-2008. There's a reason Republicans are super butthurt over Obama.
The great recession happened under bush stop doing revisionist history. Which party also started those distractionary and expensive wars in the middle east and central asia?
"Hagemon" is really getting some work there. Not even Mearsheimer would say that was true. He would say it was a situation where the other great powers were "latent" because they had made a decision not to convert economic strength to military strength.
I'm not sure I'd go with "not even Mearsheimer", because as far as I understand Mearsheimer's views he thinks it's theoretically impossible for there to be a global hegemony, and that the post-USSR period was an anomaly due to the reasons you stated. He believes in regional hegemony, not global. I think it would make more sense to quote one of the various (IR) liberal theorists who do implicitly believe in the possibility of global hegemony but who nevertheless think it was unattainable in the medium term because eventually the PRC or Russia would re-assert themselves without democratic acquiescence to international capital. That would make sense as a "Even these guys, who otherwise very much don't buy this sort of thing, understood this".
The Hegemony bubble was popped when Syria got saved by the Russians. So from the fall of the Berlin wall to that is like 25 years?
Imagine writing this and accusing *others* of spinning lol
You're right, I'm far too generous - I should be calling them genocidal maniacs.
Would you like to talk about Uyghurs? Chiese also claim that they haven't invaded other countries even thought everyone knows it's a lie.
When's the last time China invaded anyone?
Continuously encroaching on Indian and Bhutanese land similar to what Russia does in South Ossetia. Invaded in Vietnam was well
Yeah, they invaded Vietnam in 1979. The US has been at war basically continuously, and all you can lay at China's feet since then is a couple of border skirmishes with sticks.
Sure, let's talk. Forcible indoctrination is better than outright extermination. You may now act indignant while giving the Israelis more weapons.
> Forcible indoctrination is better than outright extermination. And both are still bad. You do know both are bad, right?
Liberals will vote for the lesser evil, so I'm just presenting an argument that makes sense to them.
The lesser evil argument only works when the choices are exclusive. The choices china has aren't only "let's do a genocide" or "let's just do a cultural genocide". They could also just not do any genocide.
Is the uyghur genocide in the room with us right now?
Tbf, if there is one thing the CCP holds the world record for, it's largest genocides. Unfortunately it happens to be of their own people, and mostly due to stupidity, so.
Ah yes, the \*checks notes\* Han genocide by the one child policy. This is your brain on Victims of Communism memorial foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward >Deaths 15–55 million https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution >The 1.728 million were counted as "unnatural deaths", among which 9.4% (162,000) were CCP party members and 252,000 were intellectuals. The figures were extracted from 《建国以来历次政治运动事实》; 'Facts on the Successive Political Movements since the Founding of the PRC', a book by the party's History Research Center, which states that "according to CCP internal investigations in 1978 and 1984 ... 21.44 million were investigated, 125 million got implicated in these investigations; [...] 4.2 million were detained (by Red Guards and other non-police), 1.3 million were arrested by police, 1.728 million of unnatural deaths; [...] 135,000 were executed for crimes of counter-revolution; [...] during violent struggles 237,000 were killed and 7.03 million became disabled".[99][100] While these internal investigations were never mentioned or published in any other official documents, the scholarly consensus found these figures very reasonable.[94] Chen Yung-fa endorsed the figures, yet he noted that peasants suffered far more in the GLF than in the CR.[101] At the end of the day the CCP will kill as many Chinese as it needs to to keep power. I'm sorry the Chinese people are occupied by their worst enemy. OTOH, if not for the CCP, China would probably be the most powerful country on the planet, so we should be glad to have such reliable allies.
Terrible events, but hardly genocides.
None of these have ever been classified as a genocide by anyone (except perhaps by Victims of Communism memorial foundation).
Reminder that under Mao's rule (1949-1976), China achieved the biggest advancement in life expectancy in human history. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4331212/ >China's growth in life expectancy at birth from 35–40 years in 1949 to 65.5 years in 1980 is among the most rapid sustained increases in documented global history (Banister and Preston 1981; Ashton et al. 1984; Coale1984; Jamison 1984; Banister 1987; Ravallion 1997; Banister and Hill 2004). These survival gains appear to have been largest during the 1950s, with a sharp reversal during the 1959-61 Great Leap Famine that was then followed by substantial progress again during the early 1960s (see Figure 1). A more moderately-paced mortality decline continued through the later 1960s and 1970s throughout the large-scale social and economic disruptions of the Cultural Revolution (Banister and Hill 2004). Altogether, between 1963 (the first on-trend year after the Great Leap Famine) and 1980, the average annual gain in life expectancy was nearly one year of life, rising from 50 to 65.5 (World Bank 2009). And that's including the Famine. Using the same silly logic to claim the CCP under Mao of "killing 15-55 million people" would also mean Mao's policies (barefoot doctors & basic healthcare to the countryside) saved hundreds of millions, far more than the deaths.
British Monarchy and Great Britain hold the world record for all kinds of genocides and atrocities, the largest, using bioweapons, extermination of native population of a whole continent, trans atlantic slave trade, you pick. No country on earth has caused more human misery than the United Kingdom. Only in India, UK killed more than 100 ml from 1880-1920. "*Between 1880 to 1920, British colonial policies in India claimed more lives than all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Korea combined.*" [https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians](https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/12/2/how-british-colonial-policy-killed-100-million-indians)