[Asia/Oceania] Yellen says she hopes China wont mount retaliation against any steps Washington takes

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Asia/Oceania] Yellen says she hopes China wont mount retaliation against any steps Washington takes

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(Thread IKs: fart simpson)

atelier morgan: Mar 11, 2003; super-scientific, ultra-gay; Lipstick Apathy

Mia Wasikowska posted:

so if the success of Socialism with Chinese characteristics depends on having the correct paramount leader, what happens when they eventually have a lovely leader? how could china survive a gorbachev for example

good question nobody in this thread is close to being able to answer

i hope the cpc's strong enough to do so (or at least strong enough to keep any would-be gorbachevs away from the tanks) but gently caress knows

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:23

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:23

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

the bitcoin of weed posted:

the fact that the western left is still so ultrafixated on marx after 150 years and after so many of his predictions were proven completely naive and wrong by actual historical events is pretty sad

Tbf it's difficult to build an academic tradition expanding on Marx when trying to do so is a career ender. And the Russians and Chinese weren't and aren't known for the comprehensive English language translations of their work, unfortunately.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:30

Clip-On Fedora: Feb 20, 2011

Atrocious Joe posted:

I am somewhat surprised seeing these protests embraced and celebrated by people in the US who I know agitated to keep COVID protections in place and even counter-protested "anti-lockdown" events. I guess I underestimated how mainstream anti-China sentiment is in the US.

Well that's because Joe Biden solved COVID and everything is fixed now. Anyone still wearing a mask or acting like COVID is a thing is spitting on his legacy and that includes foreigners.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:32

Antonymous: Apr 4, 2009

Orange Devil posted:

Tbf it's difficult to build an academic tradition expanding on Marx when trying to do so is a career ender. And the Russians and Chinese weren't and aren't known for the comprehensive English language translations of their work, unfortunately.

english is a filth language, a mind virus

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:34

i say swears online: Mar 4, 2005

Orange Devil posted:

Tbf it's difficult to build an academic tradition expanding on Marx when trying to do so is a career ender. And the Russians and Chinese weren't and aren't known for the comprehensive English language translations of their work, unfortunately.

also I wonder how many potential writers in those countries didn't write theory books because they were too busy putting ideas to practice

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:38

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

strange feelings re Daisy posted:

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1597298066381733889?s=20&t=

# ? Nov 29, 2022 08:51

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Naomi Klein - Prof. of Media Literacy

# ? Nov 29, 2022 09:27

R. Guyovich: Dec 25, 1991

atelier morgan posted:

good question nobody in this thread is close to being able to answer

i hope the cpc's strong enough to do so (or at least strong enough to keep any would-be gorbachevs away from the tanks) but gently caress knows

the anti-corruption campaign and internal reforms the cpc has been undertaking in recent years appear to be at least in part an effort to improve governance and ensure the party has the capacity to self-sustain for future generations. corruption was very obviously a huge problem in the jiang and hu eras and clearing out the dross has not only increased public buy-in but firmed up the backbone of the structure of the government itself

# ? Nov 29, 2022 09:36

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

That said, the divide between Orthodox Marxists and Communists goes back to 1917. You just have a fundamental divide between the ideas of a 19th century economist (who was right about a lot) and actually how to run a government to address the problems he layed out.

Xi and China isn't any different.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 09:37

Bot 02: Apr 2, 2010; Dude... Did my plushie just talk?

Mia Wasikowska posted:

so if the success of Socialism with Chinese characteristics depends on having the correct paramount leader, what happens when they eventually have a lovely leader? how could china survive a gorbachev for example

I don't know the details so I cant say for certain, but I'm assuming the process wasn't "luckily Xi stumbled into the position and saved China" but rather that this is the result of massive trends and forces within the party to make this happen.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 09:48

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

Actual Existing Socialism is going to always be vulnerable while Capitalist hegemony exists, unfortunately. No one would have predicted Gorbachev's surrender in 1970, and yet it happened. Perhaps the experience of seeing what happened to the Warsaw Pact nations after liberalization has inoculated the CPC somewhat, but it's basically always been a fatal flaw for lefties that they take liberals at their word. Just look earlier in this very thread where someone talked about the average Chinese person being far too trusting of Americans.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 10:11

Bald Stalin: Jul 11, 2004; Our posts

Just posting itt to say I'm very glad d&d is so stupid they'll actually suggest people read this one instead of their own. The last few pages here have been really enlightening vs whatever the gently caress is going on over there. It's like seeing society through a class lense for the first time again.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 10:26

crepeface: Nov 5, 2004; r*p*f*c*

lol @ the Naomi Klein meltdown

# ? Nov 29, 2022 10:59

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

Atrocious Joe posted:

I am somewhat surprised seeing these protests embraced and celebrated by people in the US who I know agitated to keep COVID protections in place and even counter-protested "anti-lockdown" events. I guess I underestimated how mainstream anti-China sentiment is in the US.

why its almost as if the culture wars encourage people to support a side not because they have a better more coherent argument but because theyre arbitrarily coded as correct and the leaders in such a political dynamic feel no shame about completely reversing their policies overnight because they know the base will support them no matter what

# ? Nov 29, 2022 11:08

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1485766660166324225

Wait there are socialists in China still?

quote:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." -Karl Marx

If you think socialism or communism is just going to the wikipedia page and treating the characteristics listed there as a checklist on a scorecard, then you have some more reading and some more growth to go through.

Communism, or at least Marxism, is about understanding the material conditions of the world and creating an actionable theory of change which can succeed in changing the world and successfully advance our class interests. Or in other words, "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."

If you look at China and you're confused about how they could be socialist, and you have objections like, "Wait, but they don't have public ownership of industries, the workers don't own the means of production, they still have private enterprise," those are all understandable. I can take another post to explain the rationale behind Chinese socialism and why those decisions are rational responses to the material conditions they are addressing which serve to advance the class interests of the working class despite also introducing their own contradictions. But for this post what I want to highlight is the fact that the policy prescriptions and plans of action that are suggested in works like "The Communist Manifesto" are plans developed with the European context in mind.

In fact, the general check list for "This is what communists should do" that comes from the Communist Manifesto even comes with this caveat acknowledging that this is only applicable to the conditions of the developed world.

"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable..."

You can only organize the workers, march on the factories, and seize the means of production and start employing them to satisfy your communal interests instead of the interests of the capitalist class if you already have developed industry. The slogan "Seize the means of production" is completely nonsensical in the Chinese context. When China emerged victorious from its revolutionary struggle in the 1950s, it had just ended a century of colonial occupation, during which time all of their natural resources and labor had been robbed from them at gunpoint and used to develop the colonial powers instead of their homeland.

So you have a country that is starting out with absolutely nothing. Over 90% of the country is peasant farmers, with the vast majority of them still carrying out the arduous work of tending to the land with hand tools. These conditions were so brutal that before the revolution the average life expectancy was only around 30 years.

So you're setting off on the path of socialist construction, and if you want to advance the class interests of the working class you need to be able to build up the advanced industry that is capable of providing everyone with a decent standard of life. Your options are:

a) stubbornly try to build an advanced economy from sticks and stones

or

b) implement some mechanism of exchange to gain access to the means of developing an advanced economy, giving you access to important, labor saving tools and technologies that dramatically reduce the amount of toil needed for that development.

If you choose b, your options for that mechanism of exchange in current conditions are:

a) markets
or
b) war and conquest, where you rightfully claim that capital by force as reparations for a century of brutal exploitation

Let me know which of these options you would choose, and if you're interested in discussing this topic further, let me know!

quote:
Genuine question, I'd really like to hear what you think about the Chinese governments treatment of citizens throughout its attempts and successes to reduce class disparities. Means to an end I guess is what I'm asking?

Also as I look at it there is a third option besides war and market that China is taking. The South China Sea expansion, and the predatory loans to developing nations, or ownership by stealth. Does subjugating 'other' (non-Chinese) lands and people prevent it from claiming any credibility in a socialist agenda?

Sorry if this isn't clear it's late and I'm tired and I knew I'd never come back

Sure, I'd be glad to address these issues. Personally, I'm persuaded by the Marxist theory of change. This is a theory of change that doesn't prescribe a course of action, but rather is a process of understanding reality by studying the contradictions between opposing forces, and using that analysis to put into practice a plan of action that uses those contradictions as the motive force. This is a scientific process, which means all of your theory must be tested against reality by putting it into practice.

What this does mean is that sometimes you make mistakes or errors in your analysis, and this can lead to serious errors and mistakes in your practice. This doesn't make something not Marxist, however. You only become anti-Marxist if you make mistakes and then refuse to correct them. In other words, if you test your practice against reality and reality shows you to be wrong, you must adapt. My criteria for judging a socialist project is not that they make no mistakes, but they constantly adapt to their changing material conditions and that they address mistakes where they arise.

Incidents like the Great Leap Forward are an example of such mistakes. It arose for an ultra-leftist position and a desire to leap ahead and immediately build up the advanced industry needed to secure a high standard of living for all, but this plan was too optimistic given the current material conditions. Agricultural development suffered as a result of this focus on industrial development, and they were left under-prepared when droughts hit and the result was widespread starvation. However, it would be wrong to use this incident as evidence of some innate characteristic of Chinese socialism, because it is an error that is well recognized by the party, much study has been done on these mistakes and how to avoid them, and it is an incident which has not been repeated.

___

With all of that said, lets begin discussing the market reforms of the Deng period, what contradictions they were responding to, and what contradictions they introduced as a result. We've established that China has a tremendous problem with scarcity at this time period. They've just come out of a century of colonial rule where all of their development had been robbed from them, and all of the tools of developing an advanced economy are locked behind global capital.

The Mao land reforms had made tremendous progress at alleviating some of these conditions, guaranteeing basic subsistence for everyone and doubling the average life expectancy from only around 30 years up to over 60 years. But basic subsistence is not the end goal of socialist development.

We want to be able to guarantee everyone a good standard of life in return to their contribution to society, and you need advanced and modern industry in order to do that. There's a few problems to deal with here. One, industrialization is difficult, back-breaking work, especially without the modern labor saving tools and equipment of modern construction. And two, China is attempting this industrialization right in the middle of Cold War hostilities being directed at every socialist bloc country.

The market reforms helped address both problems. You gain access to foreign investment in incredibly important labor saving technologies which reduce the toil involved with industrialization by a tremendous amount. Additionally, by inviting in foreign investment and reintroducing private control of some of your industries, you create an effective deterrent to imperialist aggression by creating a kind of "mutually assured economic destruction." If your country's economic well-being is tied together with China's, then you're not likely to start a war with China or try to destabilize their country.

Alongside of this, you do also introduce all of the contradictions of private enterprise. The contradictions of exploitation, of uneven development, of inequality, and so on. Of course these are contradictions we should not be happy with or celebrate, even if the bigger picture shows tremendous development and gains in wealth for China as a whole. At the same time, it would be a mistake to flatly condemn China and completely negate their efforts because these contradictions exist. Again, it depends on how these contradictions are handled.

In order to do this analysis, we must once again broaden our scope. Because participating in the global market means that the contradictions you are dealing with come from the global marketplace. Namely, the Marxist idea of the "Industrial Reserve Army of Surplus Labor" comes into sharp focus here. This idea is that one of the tools of private enterprise to depress wages and neglect working conditions comes from the fact that your labor is in competition with everyone else, and if someone else is unemployed, living in squalor or on the streets going hungry and are desperate for work, then you don't have any negotiating power over your own wages and conditions. After all, why would your employer offer you a fair wage when they could hire the person who is desperate and willing to work for scraps?

The same sort of principle applies when you are attempting to attract investment on the global market. When you are a desperately poor country like China was at this time, you don't have the leverage to negotiate for good pay and good conditions, because "Why should I build my factories here when I could go to some other desperately poor formerly colonized nation and build my factory over there?"

So the beginning of these reforms absolutely introduced difficult working conditions for low pay, and it would be dishonest not to recognize that. However, I think that the rationalization for the market reforms that I gave above outweighs most of the negatives. And it is also important to note that most of the worst conditions and worst exploitation came out of areas like Taiwan, which is an autonomous region that is not directly administered by the PRC, but is managed instead by local officials. When you read stories about Foxconn factories where working conditions were so bad they had to install suicide nets to keep people from jumping out of the building, most of those stories came out of Taiwan.

However, what we also see is as these material conditions change, the better negotiating position China has, and that additional leverage gained is consistently transformed into improving conditions and improving wages for the working class. The less reliant on foreign investment China becomes, the less it has to accept lovely deals. And the more capital that gets invested in Chinese markets, the harder it is for any company to pull out without losing a huge sunk cost. This gets transformed into leverage that the government uses to consistently drive wages up, for an average of 17% every year and an around 400% increase over the past 3 decades. Chinese labor rights and reforms are now on par or better than most Western markets. And sometimes, this does result in companies shutting down or going out of business and choosing to outsource to a cheaper labor market instead of staying in China, just as had happened in the US. The difference is that when a company outsources jobs in the US, the result is thousands of people go out of work and the local economy is irrecoverably destroyed.

When it happens in China, those business assets simply become part of a State Owned enterprise and production keeps going as long as there is a need for it.

One of the problems with unions in America is that unions could never ask for that much because they had to make sure the business that they were working for didn't go out of business and put them all out of work. The CPC has no such issues, and is much more effective at addressing the contradictions of private enterprise because of it.

___

I'm going to take a separate post to talk about the idea of China engaging in imperialist exploitation.

Now, regarding claims of China dominating other nations through means of predatory loans and the like, and militaristic expansion, these things fall under the general umbrella of imperialist exploitation. So I feel it's useful to have a discussion about imperialism, how and why imperialism manifests itself, and then see how this compares to the character of Chinese foreign policy.

The purpose of Imperialist finance is the extraction of capital and resources. The way that this works, and what enables modern imperialism, is the conditions left over from centuries of colonization and colonial looting. You have the former (and in some cases current) colonial nations as members of these large imperialist finance groups like the IMF and World Bank that give loans to other nations. Typically, these relationships are characterized by the fact that the formerly colonized nation is still desperately poor and in need of investment and modernization, and the imperialist financier (who is using capital gained in part from previous colonial exploitation) has leverage over the terms of these loans.

The goal of the imperialist is not to develop the self-sufficiency of these countries, but to ensure that these countries remain dependent on external investment so that the imperialist can keep extracting capital through predatory interest rates.

There are a few ways that this takes place. For one, the goal is extraction of resources, so these loans usually come with terms requiring that it is used to develop extractive industries such as mining. Any food aid usually comes in the form of direct food imports, rather than sustainable agricultural development and investments in things like farm equipment. Additionally, political reforms are often pre-conditions for these loans, specifically economic liberalization of the economy. Governments are expected to divest from any public run industries and sell them off to private enterprises.

Any public infrastructure that does end up being developed as a part of these loan agreements also usually prioritizes subsidizing these extractive industries, which all belong to private companies. You can look at maps in countries all throughout Africa who have received IMF loans, and a pattern you'll usually see is that some of the only roads and railroads that have been built go straight from mining towns and factory towns out to the coast, so that all of those goods and resources can be loaded up at the harbor and sold overseas to help pay down the interest on those loans with the export tax revenue. If a country ever fails to keep paying these predatory loans and defaults due to the natural fluctuations of the market, these finance institutions take this opportunity to force through even more political reforms, such as more privatization, or forcing through austerity measures that sell off whatever meagre public safety net and public spending that they may have in order to "trim their budget" so they can pay back the loan. The domestic policy of a sovereign nation is thus dictated from the loan office. Naturally all of these loan agreements are backed by the vastly superior military and economic might of the financers. The fact that the USD is the global reserve currency that almost all international trade is done with gives incredibly leverage through way of sanctions to any nation who doesn't comply with these loan terms.

Chinese finance, on the other hand, shares almost no similarities to this process. Chinese loans don't have predatory interest rates, they are usually given at close to market rates (roughly around the rate of inflation), or in some cases at a zero percent interest rate. They don't exclude national development in favor of extractive industries, instead they have helped to build up national infrastructure that have helped tremendously to improve the self sufficiency of these nations rather than keep them trapped in debt. And when recipients are facing financial hardship and default on their loans, China has been known to completely forgive the remaining loan balance, rather than using that as an opportunity to force through austerity and privatization.

It is true that Chinese businesses get priority as suppliers and business contracts as part of the development plans that these loans are funding, but those materials and that investment has to come from somewhere. The fact that Chinese businesses and Chinese State Owned Enterprises benefit from these deals doesn't make them exploitative. Typically, we refer to exchanges where both sides benefit as normal trade relations, not anything nefarious like "imperialism" and "financial exploitation." I am firmly of the opinion that these accusations about China are projection by those who want to distract from their own misdeeds.

Generally, it would seem to me that China's investment policy in Africa and throughout the global south is genuinely motivated by the same issue that I highlighted in the previous post about the industrial reserve army. Their negotiating power on the global market is tied together with those who are the most impoverished, who are the most desperate, and China invests in those economies because the better those at the bottom are doing, the less leverage capital has to enforce poor working conditions and low wages. That power comes from the ability to pick up shop and move to somewhere more desperate, and if you lift up those who are the most desperate alongside of and as part of your development then not only do you get more reliable trading partners so you don't have to rely on western capital as much, but you also remove the leverage western capital has to simply pick up and leave for a more desperate market.

What this means is having normal diplomatic relationships with countries regardless of whether you support the current government in power, because what matters is whether the material conditions are improving. There's an essay I really like called "The Long Game and its Contradictions" that addresses this point really well.

quote:
https://leohezhao.medium.com/the-long-game-and-its-contradictions-8ff92823cf68

"The CPC understands that national leaders and ruling parties are fickle and ephemeral, but development and the improvement of material conditions will have long lasting effects. Creating a more balanced global playing field is the long game, which will create the conditions necessary for systemic change in each country, by their own agency."

This can be contrasted with the former Soviet Union's model of "exporting revolution," which tried to agitate change outside of its borders by funding and educating revolutionaries, and providing assistance and support to revolutionary governments. This model of "open antagonism" has some merit, but the problem we saw during the Cold War is that it invites the crushing weight of capitalist and imperialist aggression with nearly every resource available to crush the socialist bloc in response, and most socialist governments couldn't survive under the weight of that repression and didn't survive into the 21st century as a result. Maybe history would have turned out differently had the Sino-Soviet split never happened, but that's an incredibly complicated subject and I don't think that it fundamentally changes the fact that when you try to instigate revolution as an outside force, it becomes too easy to rally the forces of reaction against you. Social/political change has to come from inside, or else you run into the issue of reactionaries having the rallying cry of "those dirty commie invaders are trying to destroy your god, your country, and your way of life, so you need to go grab a gun and defend our flag and our fatherland!"

# ? Nov 29, 2022 11:32

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

Good writeup but everytime the Sino-Soviet split comes up it seems everyone just goes "it's incredibly complicated" and leaves it there. Nobody able to condense that poo poo down into an effort post?

# ? Nov 29, 2022 11:59

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Orange Devil posted:

Good writeup but everytime the Sino-Soviet split comes up it seems everyone just goes "it's incredibly complicated" and leaves it there. Nobody able to condense that poo poo down into an effort post?

After Stalin died, Khrushchev denounced him and the idea of a Cult of Personality. The CPC didn't like this, because they thought it would blow back on Mao, intentionally or otherwise.

As well, Khrushchev devised the idea of, and began promoting, peaceful co-existence with the capitalist West, which the CPC also thought was dumb and wrong.

There's been a couple of deeper analyses of the topic that's come up before in this thread, but that's the root of it, combined with some resentment over the USSR feeling like they lead the communist bloc and looked on everyone else as little brothers.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:05

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/bidetmarxman/status/1485766660166324225

Wait there are socialists in China still?

excellent

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:05

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

ModernMajorGeneral posted:

I've only been to China a few times but seeing people just talk to cops normally or commit minor crimes in front of them and be ignored goes a long way towards dispelling the idea the country is an all powerful police state

i can tell you that for most americans, it doesn�t do this. they compartmentalize what they�re seeing so that it isn�t a threat to their preconceptions

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:29

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Also, the great leap forward wasn't as "extreme leftist" endevor in the sense it was pretty much indentical in its first year to the five five year plan, the issue is that the PRC simply ran out of the cash reserves to keep it going and had to push more desperate measures to try to push industrialization since it is the only thing they could do. It wasn't an ideological issue.

The famine that occurred afterwards also had relatively little to do with it beyond supply shipments to urban areas being prioritized but China also had multiple famine across the 20th century of similar size.

Also, Dengism was the right course but it is only after the PRC did everything else it could over 20 years to not go in that direction. In the end, by the 1970s they simply had no where else to turn.

It really isn't some type of secret history.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:41

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

stephenthinkpad posted:

The west is just more ideological.

the western revolutionaries all failed 100 years ago and rather than trying to figure out why and trying to learn anything from the successes of countries that won their revolutions, they�ve decided to retreat into idealism and want to become the arbiters and source of ideology and condemn any successful revolutions as fake or lesser. they western socialists don�t actually want to actually build socialism

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:44

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

gradenko_2000 posted:

https://twitter.com/DanReznikWSWS/status/1597403641761402880?t=xr-24WOO05P3_8jlDgMH6Q&s=19

https://twitter.com/DanReznikWSWS/status/1597399256586780672?t=54hl62NEeCk3tfR8alXTzw&s=19

Even the Trots are drawing the correct line on this drat

The trots have been surprisingly good on covid

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:48

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Orange Devil posted:

Tbf it's difficult to build an academic tradition expanding on Marx when trying to do so is a career ender. And the Russians and Chinese weren't and aren't known for the comprehensive English language translations of their work, unfortunately.

western leftists don�t care and won�t read any of the existing translations anyway. i think they�re seen as lesser, not much to learn from them

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:51

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

gradenko_2000 posted:

After Stalin died, Khrushchev denounced him and the idea of a Cult of Personality. The CPC didn't like this, because they thought it would blow back on Mao, intentionally or otherwise.

As well, Khrushchev devised the idea of, and began promoting, peaceful co-existence with the capitalist West, which the CPC also thought was dumb and wrong.

There's been a couple of deeper analyses of the topic that's come up before in this thread, but that's the root of it, combined with some resentment over the USSR feeling like they lead the communist bloc and looked on everyone else as little brothers.

My version. China went to the Soviet side at the point of Korea war which started the cold war. Mao and CPC felt they were forced into this position because otherwise the Soviet army wouldn't leave Dongbei. And because of the Korea war PRC lost the chance to liberate Taiwan. Chinese army paid a heavy price to save the buffer state of NK but ultimately got a decent deal from Soviet, which were many soviet advisors in the 156 heavy industry projects that kicked start China's industrialization.

But Mao and CPC didn't like the post Stalin ideological revisionism, also didn't want to integrate China's economy into part of the Soviet ecosystem like eastern europe did. So Soviet and China didn't see eye to eyes and Khrushchev pulled out the industry advisors.

Mao responded by a small border conflict with soviet and a war against India in 62, right at the week of the Cuban missile crisis. India was soviet's ally at the time. This sino-soviet tension slowly escalated to the end of Mao's life in 76. Mao oversaw China's pivot to the US because he sent signals to the US before Kissinger's secret visit.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 12:58

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Orange Devil posted:

Good writeup but everytime the Sino-Soviet split comes up it seems everyone just goes "it's incredibly complicated" and leaves it there. Nobody able to condense that poo poo down into an effort post?

Khrushchev was an rear end in a top hat in meetings with the Chinese insisting that they do whatever the Soviets say. mao�s blas� attitude to WW3 and starting the Taiwan straight crises had Khrushchev cut back on aid and tech transfers to China resulting in the CPC calling him out for being a revisionist more interested in peaceful cooperation with the bourgeois west.

there was some meeting in 58 I think that I read the transcript of that�s basically Khrushchev demanding the Chinese let them build Soviet naval bases and radar stations along the coast. the whole meeting devolves into arguments about Soviet chauvinism because they won�t accept the Chinese counteroffer of China building and financing the bases and letting a small team Soviet advisors assist running them

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:01

Corky Romanovsky: Oct 1, 2006; Soiled Meat

trot's right

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:01

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

stephenthinkpad posted:

The old Mulan did 300+ mil in BO. It was on par with other animation like Pocahontas. I double checked, apparently it flopped in China.

do you have a more direct source on this than box office mojo im fine if its in chinese

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:09

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

fart simpson posted:

the western revolutionaries all failed 100 years ago and rather than trying to figure out why and trying to learn anything from the successes of countries that won their revolutions, they�ve decided to retreat into idealism and want to become the arbiters and source of ideology and condemn any successful revolutions as fake or lesser. they western socialists don�t actually want to actually build socialism

"the western left failed because it is cowardly and holds the wrong beliefs" always seemed itself idealist to me. the difficulty of maintaining a stable materialist perception in the west is something I always try to elucidate in my screeds about cybernetic capitalism: the notion that it is Capital's totalitarian and systematic structuring of the imperial core as perceptual environment which leads imperial core subjects into idealism, rather than an arbitrary cowardice or other internal faults of western leftists, because it facilitates Capital's reproduction. perversely, from such an idealist perspective, because they cannot see how changing the material conditions will lead to change in ideas, since from their captive vantage point it is ideas which should lead to change in material conditions, the behavior of an ideologically materialist society must always seem wrong. this perceptual capture is one of Capital's greatest tricks, because we can't simply realize our way out of it any more than we can realize our way out of a chemically induced hallucination. the material environment is systematically constructed to afford certain perceptions, and to preclude others.

a great wallace shawn quote on commodity fetishism that was thrown a lot here some years ago always comes to mind in capturing the perceptual difficulty i'm talking about :

quote:

One day there was an anonymous present sitting on my doorstep -- Volume One of Capital by Karl Marx, in a brown paper bag. A joke? Serious? And who had sent it? I never found out. Late that night, naked in bed, I leafed through it. The beginning was impenetrable, I couldn't understand it, but when I came to the part about the lives of the workers -- the coal miners, the child laborers -- I could feel myself suddenly breathing more slowly. How angry he was. Page after page. Then I turned back to an earlier section, and I came to a phrase that I'd heard before, a strange, upsetting, sort of ugly phrase: this was the section on "commodity fetishism," "the fetishism of commodities." I wanted to understand that weird-sounding phrase, but I could tell that, to understand it, your whole life would probably have to change.

His explanation was very elusive. He used the example that people say, "Twenty yards of linen are worth two pounds." People say about every thing that it has a certain value. This is worth that. This coat, this sweater, this cup of coffee: each thing worth some quantity of money, or some number of other things -- one coat, worth three sweaters, or so much money -- as if that coat, suddenly appearing on the earth, contained somewhere inside itself an amount of value, like an inner soul, as if the coat were a fetish, a physical object that contains a living spirit. But what really determines the value of a coat? The coat's price comes from its history, the history of all the people who were involved in making it and selling it and all the particular relationships they had. And if we buy the coat, we, too, form relationships with all of those people, and yet we hide those relationships from our own awareness by pretending we live in a world where coats have no history but just fall down from heaven with prices marked inside. "I like this coat," we say, "It's not expensive," as if that were a fact about the coat and not the end of a story about all the people who made it and sold it, "I like the pictures in this magazine."

A naked woman leans over a fence. A man buys a magazine and stares at her picture. The destinies of these two are linked. The man has paid the woman to take off her clothes, to lean over the fence. The photograph contains its history -- the moment the woman unbuttoned her shirt, how she felt, what the photographer said. The price of the magazine is a code that describes the relationships between all those people -- the woman, the man, the publisher, the photographer -- who commanded, who obeyed. The cup of coffee contains the history of the peasants who picked the beans, how some of them fainted in the heat of the sun, some were beaten, some were kicked.

For two days I could see the fetishism of commodities everywhere around me. It was a strange feeling. Then on the third day I lost it, it was gone, I couldn't see it anymore.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:15

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

Some Guy TT posted:

do you have a more direct source on this than box office mojo im fine if its in chinese

No I just googled Mulan BO. I also have never heard any Chinese talk about the Mulan animation nor other 2nd tier animation movies anecdotally. There was a HK version of cartoon Mulan with proper Cantonese songs, nobody talked about it either.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:27

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Admittedly, commodity fetishism was also very much a thing in 2020-2021 because you have one of the most massive asset bubbles in the modern-era. Obviously it was temporary but the timing wasn't an accident.

There was no way Taiwan could take Taiwan in the early 1950s...they didn't have a fleet and their rocket/missile tech wasn't anywhere ready. I think there were chauvinistic attitudes by the Soviets in chief part due to the fact that Krushchev and his reformist/revisionist section of the party was willing to throw anything/anyone under the bus to cozy up to the US and they never got anything for their efforts. Gorbachev very much was from this side of the party in his early years, and in many way the collapse occurred because of this strain of Western thought.

Never trust the Westernizers they will always screw you.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:31

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

I was reading this chart posted in an economist article

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2022/04/19/how-chinas-sinovac-compares-with-biontechs-mrna-vaccine

So apparently at 3 shots the Sinovac vaccine has efficacy which is virtually the same as the mRNA vaccines. If this is the case, offramping from zero covid should be as simple as getting everyone three shots. Well, if you can call vaccinating that many people "simple".

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:33

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Yeah, that is in case of fatal/severe cases of the disease, mRNA vaccines may lead to more effectiveness of milder symptoms but at the end of the day you want people not to die or have severe life debilitating issues.

In the case of China, I especially if they can get their booster coverage closer to their overall vaccination rate, the chance of severe calamity is going to be heavily mitigated. The issue right now is that a lot of elder Chinese people don't want to get shots but the gap seem to have largely closed and the push is to get a 80-90% booster rate.

Btw, a lot of the issues with studies is that there often isn't a true control anymore for unvaccinated people in the sense most unvaccinated people have been exposed/exposed multiple times and so booster shots are showing much more minor effectiveness versus people with immunity via infection because so many people in the study were probably already infected.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:45

Bot 02: Apr 2, 2010; Dude... Did my plushie just talk?

Red and Black posted:

Well, if you can call vaccinating that many people "simple".

Through communism, all things are possible.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:45

Red and Black: Sep 5, 2011

I guess you also have to consider that "letting 'er rip" even with the whole population vaccinated will still cause countless deaths and could still possibly overwhelm the medical system

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:45

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Red and Black posted:

I guess you also have to consider that "letting 'er rip" even with the whole population vaccinated will still cause countless deaths and could still possibly overwhelm the medical system

It is probably why you wouldn't pull a US style mass opening but rather a phased one where you still have PPE/control measures but without the severe lockdowns of the past. The question is in the long run out you get around those deaths, because the disease in endemic at this point and in all honesty maybe you could have one more big booster push but at a certain point there will be a point of declining returns.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:49

Benagain: Oct 10, 2007; Can you see that I am serious?; Fun Shoe

You're talking about this and letting ideology dictate your posting. Posting arises from observable conditions: we will watch and see what the party does in China, knowing it was the best call.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:52

stephenthinkpad: Jan 2, 2020

Mainland couldn't "take" Taiwan because the cold war started.

If Cold war didn't start, or FDR lived 10 more years and Stalin didn't give old Kim the go ahead to start the korea war, cold war could have started in a totally different time. FDR also failed to talk Stalin into joining that new economy organization (world bank?) which could have changed thing.

US only sent 7th fleet to protect Taiwan after Mao went to the Stalin side. Without US support, PRC could have just negotiated the unification of Taiwan with Jiang. Give him a loving vice president of the new republic.

stephenthinkpad has issued a correction as of 14:05 on Nov 29, 2022

# ? Nov 29, 2022 13:55

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

As an aside, India wasn't a USSR ally in 1962 and was busy doing the NAM thing while taking industrial aid from both the US and the USSR. The bulk of india's military supplies then came from western companies and the US. It was after 1965 where India was forced by both the US and USSR to return to a status quo regarding pakistan and the fate of kashmir backed by US military embargoes that the Indira Gandhi administration started pivoting to the USSR under more explicit socialist rhetoric and action. Food security was achieved with the mechanization of agriculture, a bunch of industry was nationalized and princely estates straight up expropriated by the government. As far as military tech goes, its when Indian procurement from Soviet MIC began in earnest with the soviets happy to provide better terms than most western manufacturers.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 14:05

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

genericnick posted:

The trots have been surprisingly good on covid

# ? Nov 29, 2022 14:20

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# ? May 25, 2024 14:23

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

stephenthinkpad posted:

Mainland couldn't "take" Taiwan because the cold war started.

If Cold war didn't start, or FDR lived 10 more years and Stalin didn't give old Kim the go ahead to start the korea war, cold war could have started in a totally different time. FDR also failed to talk Stalin into joining that new economy organization (world bank?) which could have changed thing.

US only sent 7th fleet to protect Taiwan after Mao went to the Stalin side. Without US support, PRC could have just negotiated the unification of Taiwan with Jiang. Give him a loving vice president of the new republic.

I mean, even the ROC at that point probably could defend itself considering how weak the Chinese navy and would be until the 1960s. FDR could have delayed the Cold War, but the US will always have a beef with whatever country that is contesting it regardless of ideology or previous relations.

China had to go this route because simply this is the only real way for China to get a modern navy in order to have leverage over Taipei.

# ? Nov 29, 2022 14:41

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Asia/Oceania] Yellen says she hopes China wont mount retaliation against any steps Washington takes

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