China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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i fly airplanes: Sep 6, 2010; I STOLE A PIE FROM ESTELLE GETTY

Staluigi posted:

And then getting weird aggressive about that it got shot down ... in the airspace it was accidentally in that they admit it shouldn't be in

If anyone needs the official response:

https://twitter.com/oliviasiongcna/status/1622028137516384256

# ? Feb 5, 2023 07:55

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 15:48

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

"civilian", eh

it is rather funny how China's renewed war on the distinction between party, state, and civil society at home is starting to bite it in various strange ways abroad

# ? Feb 5, 2023 08:21

tristeham: Jul 31, 2022

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/s...number%3D1pti18

a bit of well-needed common sense

# ? Feb 5, 2023 08:40

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

tristeham posted:

https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/s...number%3D1pti18

a bit of well-needed common sense

Yes common sense from the guy peddling TCM.

# ? Feb 5, 2023 08:48

Herstory Begins Now: Aug 5, 2003; SOME REALLY TEDIOUS DUMB SHIT THAT SUCKS ASS TO READ ->>

ronya posted:

"civilian", eh

it is rather funny how China's renewed war on the distinction between party, state, and civil society at home is starting to bite it in various strange ways abroad

the official statement on it is basically foreign policy shitposting, for lack of a better way to describe it

# ? Feb 5, 2023 08:58

Josef bugman: Nov 17, 2011; Pictured: Poster prepares to celebrate Holy Communion (probablY)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

What is TCM?

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:01

Neurolimal: Nov 3, 2012

Traditional Chinese Medicine, basically Homeopathy but with some cultural merit. It's been a significant issue for a while in that older generations will often resort to it first, then head to the hospital when their condition has worsened.

I can't vouch for Arnaud Bertrand's takes beyond that he's some expat in China, but the WaPo link is somewhat noteworthy:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/03/how-spy-balloons-work/

(3 paragraphs from different parts of the article)

Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Feb 5, 2023

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:08

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

TCM makes homeopathy seem benevolent. It's not just nonsense, it's nonsense actively invented and promoted by the government and government-linked industry throughout the medical system, as well as exported around the world, with an infuriating streak of encouraging harvesting/killing rare or endangered animals running through it.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Feb 5, 2023

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:26

ronya: Nov 8, 2010; I'm the normal one.

You hate ridden fucks will regret your words when you eventually grow up.

Peace.

on unmanned weather balloons, over half a century ago:

http://www.c-and-e-museum.org/Pinetreeline/giebelstadt/gieb-other/other/ogieb-1.html

quote:

The low success rate of project GENETRIX balloons was not the only problem encountered; far more serious was the storm of protest and unfavorable publicity that the balloon overflights provoked. Although the Air Force had issued a cover story that the balloons were being used for weather research connected with the International Geophysical Year, Eastern European nations protested strongly to the United States and to international aviation authorities, claiming that the balloons endangered civilian aircraft. The Soviet Union sent strongly worded protest notes to the United States and the nations from which the balloons had been launched. The Soviets also collected numerous polyethylene gasbags, camera payloads, and transmitters from GENETRIX balloons and put them on display in Moscow for the world press.

All of this publicity and protest led President Eisenhower to conclude that "the balloons give more legitimate grounds for irritation than could be matched by the good obtained from them", and he ordered the project halted. On 7 February 1956 Secretary of State Dulles informed the Soviet Union that no more "weather research" balloons would be released, but he did not offer an apology for the overflights.

...

Since late summer of 1955, to help provide cover for WS-119L, a CIA front-organization, the National Committee for a Free Europe, which ran Radio Free Europe, had been launching hundreds of small balloons carrying propaganda leaflets into the skies over eastern Europe, much to the consternation of the Soviets. Then, on January 9, 1956, at State Department request, the Air Force began a well-publicized series of "White Cloud" weather balloon flights to further blur the balloon story. The White Cloud vehicles were virtually identical to the Genetrix reconnaissance devices with the exception of their gondolas, which contained only scientific equipment. A press release was then issued explaining that similar balloons would soon be launched carrying cameras "to photograph clouds." After a final conference with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and assurances from Donald Quarles that the potential benefits of the reconnaissance project were worth the risks, Eisenhower reluctantly gave his go-ahead. On January 10, the first wave or launch of Genetrix -- one from West Germany and eight from Turkey -- soared into the stratospheric windstreams to begin their missions. The next day, nine more were launched from Germany. On the 12th, the base in Scotland got one airborne, adding to seven from the German sites. Ten WS-119Ls were launched from the various bases on each of the succeeding four days. On the 17th, the rate was increased to twenty per day. Within two weeks of the outset of the project, over two hundred Genetrix were sent into the the skies over the USSR. By January 13, three balloons, the survivors of the first day's wave, exited Soviet airspace. The gondolas were successfully cut down by radio command and grabbed from the air by C-119s. In the ensuing days, about one Genetrix appeared in the recovery zones for every four launched. Eisenhower and Dulles stood ready for the anticipated Soviet protests. Days dragged into weeks. The Soviets were in a difficult position. While they were obviously enraged by the overflights, they were reluctant to call attention to their vulnerability to such tactics. By the end of January, in the absence of complaints, the Air Force decided to raise the launch rate goal to thirty per day, then forty. On February 3, a Genetrix launched from Gardermoen overflew Oslo. For the next two hours, as the gleaming ovoid drifted overhead, people in the Norwegian capital and its suburbs sent in a bevy of UFO reports.

...

Finally, on February 4, the inevitable happened. Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet deputy Foreign Minister, formally issued a "decisive protest" over the "gross violation of Soviet air space" by "aerial spheres" to the US ambassador in Moscow:

The apparatus suspended from the aerial spheres includes automatic photographic cameras for aerial photography, radio transmitters, radio receivers and other things.... Investigation shows these spheres and their suspended apparatus are manufactured in the United States.

The Air Force responded by pushing its crews to launch as many Genetrix as physically possible. But Eisenhower had had enough. Foster Dulles asked Quarles to halt the operation on the morning of February 6. A few WS-119Ls continued to straggle into recovery areas over the next few days, and while their camera packages were being secured, the State Department piously stuck to the weather balloon cover story:

The US Government is happy to supply information complementary to what is already public knowledge. Under US auspices, a meteorological survey is being carried out by the launching of balloons which are in effect miniature 'satellites' and which remain aloft for several days at a very considerable height...

Brazenly, the statement actually requested that the Soviets return balloon payloads that had fallen within their territory. The US Army and Air Force revealed that Soviet weather balloons had been recovered in Japan and Alaska in recent weeks and offered to exchange them for the US devices. Instead, on the evening of the 9th, in a show of righteous idignation, the Soviets placed the remains of about fifty shredded balloons and gondolas on display outside Molotov's residence in Moscow. They bitterly attacked the US administration for treading perilously close to war by conducting peacetime aerial espionage. Not only could the pirate devices take photographs of the territory of the USSR, but they could carry biological warfare agents, the Soviets angrily charged, in a reference to Project "Flying Cloud".

Four hundred forty eight Genetrix had been launched during the month-long project. Of that number (a fraction of the planned 2,500), thirty four gondolas were recovered with usable film aboard. These yielded about 13,000 frames showing random areas of the Soviet and Chinese hinterland -- a million square miles of snowy forests, icy lakes, farms, factories and mountains. Reportedly, Genetrix discovered only one target of significance -- a nuclear materials production complex. The results of the secretive but remarkably conspicuous reconnaissance balloon effort, which had provoked so much tragedy, confusion and rumor at home and abroad, seemed barely worth the effort.

Herstory Begins Now posted:

the official statement on it is basically foreign policy shitposting, for lack of a better way to describe it

disavowed as civilian when it's convenient, the Party at all four corners when it's not

that said, I would guess it's a primarily meteorological balloon - once the foreign ministry chose to back down and apologise, it would make no sense to hedge - but there's probably at least some dual-use imaging tech in there, for the same reason the US once made the same mistake - just because the target chooses not to publicly protest at your first couple of flights does not mean it would continue to graciously remain silent as the volume of flights increases and the public inevitably notices, but in the absence of such protests, military stakeholders would insist on their support being rewarded

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:35

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Discendo Vox posted:

TCM makes homeopathy seem benevolent. It's not just nonsense, it's nonsense actively invented and promoted by the government and government-linked industry throughout the medical system, as well as exported around the world, with an infuriating streak of encouraging harvesting/killing rare or endangered animals running through it.

Wait, it was invented by the government? I thought it was, you know, traditional practices used before modern medicine, the equivalent of continuing to use the Four Humors theory of medicine. Which they decided to promote out of some horrible sense of nationalism. Like, it's all pseudoscience and people are dying from it, but I didn't think any of it was new.

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:44

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; This does not make sense when, again, aggregate indicia also indicate improvements. The belief that things are worse is false. It remains false.

Clarste posted:

Wait, it was invented by the government? I thought it was, you know, traditional practices used before modern medicine, the equivalent of continuing to use the Four Humors theory of medicine. Which they decided to promote out of some horrible sense of nationalism. Like, it's all pseudoscience and people are dying from it, but I didn't think any of it was new.

Other people in the thread can speak to the history in more detail, but my understanding is domestically there was an active scrubbing and rewriting of the actual historical traditional practices to facilitate that nationalist promotion (and to align associated industry with government).

Edit: this article that was shared with me on the topic earlier in the thread covers some of it:
https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/traditional-chinese-medicine-origins-mao-invented-it-but-didnt-believe-in-it.html

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Feb 5, 2023

# ? Feb 5, 2023 09:48

tristeham: Jul 31, 2022

MarcusSA posted:

Yes common sense from the guy peddling TCM.

how is that relevant to the matter at hand?

# ? Feb 5, 2023 10:01

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Clarste posted:

Wait, it was invented by the government? I thought it was, you know, traditional practices used before modern medicine, the equivalent of continuing to use the Four Humors theory of medicine. Which they decided to promote out of some horrible sense of nationalism. Like, it's all pseudoscience and people are dying from it, but I didn't think any of it was new.

Chinese TCM incorporates Uyghur traditional medicine, which is indeed descended from Greek humoral medicine. There is a paper shown in this tweet that announces the presumed date of its authors:
https://twitter.com/shahitbiz/status/1267744814851915777?s=46&t=

quote:

The culture and medicine of Uyghurs have incorporated the traditions and knowledge of the peoples which inhabited in the Western Region over a period of two and a half millennia. It includes the traditions of the nomadic Empire of Hunnus and two Turk Khaganates, influences from the oasis culture of Sogdiana (Zhetysu), Persia, Northern India and the Caliphate. Through contact with these traditions, the Uyghurs adopted the Indo-European heritage of Greek and Mediterranean culture and medicine, and incorporated them in significant ways.

According to our definition at the beginning, Uyghur medicine can be treated as the classical medicine because it is based on a set of systematic philosophical doctrines originating from Greek medicine and classical Greek philosophy.

The modern Uyghurs are Muslims and do not claim the Shamanism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism and Buddhism that are actually a part of their history. The Uyghurs perceive themselves as a unified ethnic group that has existed since the times of the tribe led by the Yaghlakar (old Turk, Jay-lacar) clan in the 8th century founded the Uyghur Khanate.

The fall of Khanate in the 9th century laid the foundation for the peoples of the Tarim basin to call themselves with the same name of Uyghurs. Most of what is known about their history before this time is actually based on folk tales and legends. However, as we have tried to show in our historical survey, the Uyghurs legitimately date their history from the 4th century BE and the legendary doctor Ghazibay, the founder of the Uyghur medicine, making them the successors of Greek culture. Thus, the relics of the ancient tradition remain only in one applied discipline - medicine, with which all Uyghurs are more or less familiar.

Our second conclusion is that the medical knowledge of Uyghurs represents nothing less than an opportunity to bring back to Europe the practical knowledge of the medicine of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantians and the Europeans themselves which disappeared in Europe in 19th century after the epoch of Enlightenment. This medicinal tradition, as a form of holistic, humoral medicine, may enable us to consolidate many as-yet unrecognized currents of scientific data into new modern medicine.

According to this article by RFA, Uyghur traditional medicine is being used to positive effect in the fight against COVID, and may be outdoing TCM, which has apparently appropriated some elements of Uyghur traditional medicine:
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/traditional-medicine-01112023120823.html

quote:

Traditional Uyghur medicine used to treat COVID patients, with positive results

Xinjiang is home to more than 60 pharmaceutical companies, which generated revenue of 8.8 billion yuan, or about U.S.$1.3 million, in 2021, a 10.5% increase from the same period the previous year, according to a report by Tengritagh News Network in January 2022.

Many of the companies� products are based on traditional Uyghur medicine, which has been incorporated into traditional Chinese medicine, though China doesn�t acknowledge it, Uyghur sources say.

After the coronavirus broke out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, many drug companies in Xinjiang operated at full capacity to produce traditional Uyghur pills and syrups to treat COVID patients, China Daily reported in February 2020.

The government�s strategy to deploy traditional medicine, which incorporates Uyghur medicine, shows that Uyghur treatments are an invaluable medical asset, said Uyghur medical professional Mutellip Emchi.

�The recent attention the Chinese government has given to investing in and developing traditional medicine is due to being unable to find a cure,� he said, referring to the coronavirus.

�China and the international community realized and acknowledged the effectiveness of Uyghur traditional medicine against the COVID virus,� he said.
. . .
However, the government�s instructions to incorporate the use of traditional Uyghur medicine has raised concern among traditional Uyghur medicine experts.

Mutellip Emchi, chair of the Uyghur Medicine Professionals Association, who has been living in Turkey since 2016, said the Chinese have plundered Uyghur medical resources and industrialized them for their own interests.

Flu pills and powders

For example, the Chinese manufacture flu-curing pills and powders based on traditional Uyghur recipes, though they have not made any progress in the field, Emchi said.

�With the spread of the coronavirus, pharmaceutical companies that manufacture flu pills in Urumqi, Kashgar and Hotan could not make enough of them,� he said. �We knew it by reading news on social media.�

These medicines have been used to treat lung infections, respiratory diseases, asthma, and lung and heart diseases, he added.

�Because the coronavirus attacks patients� lungs, the hospitals use these Uyghur medicines to treat COVID patients,� Emchi said. �When there was a shortage of medicine in the hospitals, our Uyghur medicine effectively treated COVID patients of all ethnic origins.�

Uyghur medical professionals in Turkey, who have formed formed a volunteer group and developed a unique recipe for treating COVID patients using ingredients sourced locally, say they have seen positive results in patients treated with traditional Uyghur recipes, he said.

There's more to it than recent invention, but yes according this article, "an active scrubbing and rewriting of the actual historical traditional practices to facilitate that nationalist promotion (and to align associated industry with government)" is right on the mark.

mawarannahr fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Feb 5, 2023

# ? Feb 5, 2023 10:05

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007