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I'm not sure you can say 'China doesn't do Imperialism' and expect to be taken seriously unless you are taking an extremely fine definition of Imperialism where issues like the 9-dash-line and every other land dispute don't count because China's narrative is that it wants to incorporate all of it as sovereign territory. China has an extremely imperial foreign policy in SE Asia.
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Aug 12, 2023 08:54
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Alchenar posted:China has an extremely imperial foreign policy in SE Asia. No it doesn’t. China is absolutely playing silly buggers with its neighbours, but China is not pursuing an imperial policy in SEA; it’s pursuing a hegemonic one like the US does in South America. As far as I can tell, China’s foreign policy objective for SEA is to influence countries to take their lead from China where possible, and be neutral where not, and if there’s something it really cares about like natural resources, maintain access to them somehow.
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Aug 12, 2023 11:30
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Beefeater1980 posted:No it doesn’t. China is absolutely playing silly buggers with its neighbours, but China is not pursuing an imperial policy in SEA; it’s pursuing a hegemonic one like the US does in South America. As far as I can tell, China’s foreign policy objective for SEA is to influence countries to take their lead from China where possible, and be neutral where not, and if there’s something it really cares about like natural resources, maintain access to them somehow. That’s literally the definition of ‘imperialism’.
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Aug 12, 2023 11:34
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Kchama posted:That’s literally the definition of ‘imperialism’. It's only imperialism if it's from the imperial west. If it's from China, a self described state of Communism and anti imperialism it's sparkling hegemony.
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Aug 12, 2023 12:36
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So communist they crack down on anticapitalist marxists, basically peak level communism there
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Aug 12, 2023 12:59
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Alchenar posted:I'm not sure you can say 'China doesn't do Imperialism' and expect to be taken seriously unless you are taking an extremely fine definition of Imperialism where issues like the 9-dash-line and every other land dispute don't count because China's narrative is that it wants to incorporate all of it as sovereign territory. China has an extremely imperial foreign policy in SE Asia. I'd argue that the SCS is a bit more complicated than just "China is Imperialism-ing everyone".  This particular outline is courtesy of Radio Free Asia, who I believe we can all agree does not hold a bias in favor of China. It does not include Taiwan's claim, which extends into the Gulf of Tonkin. As evident, most of the countries involved have conflicting claims, with China's mainly being notable for being the largest. A part of this is due to the islands between, which each have 3-5 countries claiming them (largely for maritime borders, as they aren't particularly inhabitable): The Paracel islands are claimed by China, Vietnam, and Taiwan, with a population of roughly 1,000. The Spratly Islands are claimed by China, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, and the Phillipines, with no permanent residents but excellent positioning for fishing & trade routes.  The Scarborough Shoal is uninhabited, but claimed by China, Taiwan, and the Phillipines.  The Pratas Island has no permanent residents, but is claimed by both China and Taiwan, both stemming from the line.  China's nine-dash line excludes the Gulf of Tonkin, while Taiwan's eleven-dash line still contains it. The China/Taiwan claim to these islands stem from WW2, when the nationalist government claimed them after Japan's surrender. They had already claimed these islands internally since 1935, via an inspection committee. When the PRC took over they inherited these claims, and both countries have in the past cooperated in arguing China (ambiguous) 's claim to the listed islands, in opposition to the other nation's claims. The line is both stark and indefensible, but it's also not been enforced to a significant degree (and in fact this lack of enforcement was the basis for a PCA ruling against China in favor of UNCLOS). In the past, the US State Department has interpreted Chinese statements as the nine-dash line representing island control than actual maritime borders, both in the lack of enforcement & fluidity of their representation from map-to-map. As read here. I'd argue that it's an honest case of territorial disputes, which aren't uncommon at all, rather than an imperial greed. The only resemblance is the contrast in capable force between the involved countries. There's next to nobody on these islands, the majority of trade & fishing occurs without friction, and their claims are mirrored by Taiwan & conflict with several nations simultaneously & against each other. I also wouldn't be surprised if we ever saw a peaceful resolution on the matter.
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Aug 12, 2023 13:09
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Is Taiwan out there water cannoning Philippines vessels or building military bases on the islands though? If they were, it would be rightly criticised. It's strange to claim that it's not imperialism if not many people live there. The history of the Falklands is imperialism too, and nobody lived there before the British claimed them.
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Aug 12, 2023 13:27
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I like the idea of telling Vietnam “actually it’s not imperialism it’s just a normal case of territorial dispute”
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Aug 12, 2023 13:35
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"Actually, the hypothetical claim from somebody else is even larger than ours, so please pay no attention to our de facto militarisation of the SCS"
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Aug 12, 2023 13:38
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Dr.Radical posted:I like the idea of telling Vietnam “actually it’s not imperialism it’s just a normal case of territorial dispute” Yeah, people know what America does because they live there or somewhere that cares about America, but they don't know about the Chinese invasion and decide that their ignorance of China's history implies that they have an unimpeachable high ground in international politics.
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Aug 12, 2023 14:13
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fart simpson posted:justification of what? why are you saying this? this is just “nuh uh!” with more words Because there has been almost zero historical trends for modern China to embrace higher levels of non-educated immigrants. That was practically a plank of Mao’s reforms after the revolution. And while some changes have been made over the last 15 years or so, immigration policy discussion in the PRC invariably revolves around strict controls, and permanent residency for only those of economic worth. Hell, wasn’t it up until 2014 or so that a lot of immigration regulation was just enforced at the local level allowing a lot of selective crackdowns when the locals got riled up? https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/china-development-transformed-migration Remember, this whole argument was a question on the chances China would embrace a more relaxed immigration policy due the economic effects of their aging population. I can’t prove a negative. The onus is on you guys to show they’ve seriously considered the proposal. And the only responses you’ve given are “the West used to be racist too” and “what makes you think they aren’t flexible!?”
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Aug 12, 2023 14:41
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From the PRC's perspective, the biggest problem with immigration is obvious - immigrants will have opinions and ideas about government that come from outside your sphere of control. It's very hard to have an autocratic, single-party government and also have a significant portion of your country be immigrants unless you're going to just completely repress them and treat them as slaves a-la UAE. Strong immigration is always a risk to entrenched power and social dynamics, and those are things China's leadership is extremely sensitive about.
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Aug 12, 2023 15:24
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khwarezm posted:Because they call themselves a Socialist country, and on the international stage they talk about anti-Imperialism and all that good stuff. I know people are just going to write that off as insincere, but its still a long way away from Nazi Germany. Any country's messaging to foreign governments, its messaging to internal populations, what the government actually does and what the population itself actually believes are in most cases wildly different things. China uses the messaging of anti-imperialism because it's a good and useful tactic to oppose US positions globally as well as playing on sympathies in countries that have traditionally suffered from Western imperialism, which isn't an image problem China itself suffers from outside of Asia. They are, in effect, playing to their audience. But diplomatic messaging is intended to convince friendly governments (and to a lesser extent, their populations) to back Chinese foreign policy positions. Internal messaging has a very different goal - to convince everyone to quietly accept Xi and the party's leadership. Here's the focus is more on China's glorious past and heritage, with the implication that the time has come to reclaim that hegemonic heritage in a new age. Its benevolent anti-imperial policies are tossed out now and then as well as a general expression of the moral superiority of China but more as something of an afterthought - by and large, like most people everywhere, most people in China don't really care THAT much what their governments are getting up to overseas as long as it doesn't affect them negatively. That being said to some degree internal messaging is just white noise to most people anyways - much the same way an American might react to the President proclaiming that America is a guarantor of democracy and freedom. To some extent it's expected that the government will make such noises but most people aren't going to take it that seriously. When it comes to what the Chinese population actually believes and will act on, leaving aside the historical paternalistic and condescending (at best) Chinese attitude toward foreigners how do YOU think they'll react to large groups of foreigners moving in when youth unemployment is high and there's a lopsided gender disparity? So on the whole, "sometimes the PRC envoy to the UN makes noises about anti-imperialism" seems a very thin reed on which to suggest that China can or will quickly and easily shift into an immigration-friendly policy.
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Aug 12, 2023 16:07
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khwarezm posted:What specifically do you think that China has done in Africa that makes them comparable to reasonably recent European and American actions there? Do you believe all the debt trap nonsense? The whole back and forth started w/r/t Chinese domestic opinions towards immigration, and a supporting point that was brought up that it's probably not likely to be well-tolerated in China. The whole aspect about Africa that was being brought up was the demonstrably monstrous systemic racism perpetrated by Chinese nationals on the local populations where these mines and developments are (and against Uygher muslims and other political enemies in their own country). When I was comparing them to the West, it was narrowly within those confines of slave-like labour practices and horrific corporal punishment. The debate then got dragged into a wider context that frankly, was out of my depth and on topics I have more research I need to do before talking about it. On the military interventionism front, of course the West is worse than China, and on net, has probably done more harm in Africa than anything China's done there. On the debt trap front, it's not as black and white as I previously thought now that I've done more reading into it, but there are definitely some aspects of their lending that are predatory, but it seems moreso in the sense that they're trying to elbow their way to the front of the repayment line through secret loan agreements and escrow accounts and other methods. That behavior seems to have led to other lending bodies and creditors not wanting to engage in debt forgiveness negotiations and new loans until they get the full scope of the loans these countries have with Chinese banks and the terms, which the banks and government has been reticent to come clear about. If someone here knows more about it then that, it's definitely a topic I'd like to read more about.
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Aug 12, 2023 16:53
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The much more likely forecast, I think, to the dependency ratio problem is for less developed provinces to shed citizen youth to more developed provinces, and then guest workers are permitted in less developed provinces in industries far away from cities, where their ability to cause trouble is much more limited anyway. Similar to how Western countries find agricultural labour, by the by, but on a larger magnitude (of course) Probably not Africans but Indonesians and Burmese
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Aug 12, 2023 17:15
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Dr.Radical posted:I like the idea of telling Vietnam “actually it’s not imperialism it’s just a normal case of territorial dispute” The same Vietnamese who were invaded by a country in 1979, which several posters here have claimed is definitely not imperialist? KillHour posted:From the PRC's perspective, the biggest problem with immigration is obvious - immigrants will have opinions and ideas about government that come from outside your sphere of control. It's very hard to have an autocratic, single-party government and also have a significant portion of your country be immigrants unless you're going to just completely repress them and treat them as slaves a-la UAE. Even if China opens up to immigration and drastically reforms politically, it's going to have a struggle retaining talent because of the rampant xenophobia. This came out in full force during covid, e.g. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-china-foreigners-idAFKBN21E1DS https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/world/article-stay-away-from-here-in-china-foreigners-have-become-a-target-for/ i fly airplanes fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Aug 13, 2023 |
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Aug 13, 2023 05:58
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Countries which have no qualms placing onerous settlement movement restrictions on citizens, and which already have significant populations of male-dominated domestic migrant workers to manage as a governance phenomenon, have also no problem placing such restrictions on foreigners and foreigner settlements. China does not grant jus soli citizenship or even equal treatment amongst its actual citizens; it will discriminate by national origin by discriminating. (never mind the whole putting-millions-of-citizens-in-ethnic-cleansing camps thing also, y'know?) It is already the case that tens of thousands of Burmese work in Yunnan, in particular in sugar cane harvesting and processing, and this generates problems familiar to Western audiences: accusations of crime, gangs, that migrants use it as a stepping stone to illegally seek work in wealthier coastal cities rather than stay in remote Yunnan, etc. Ultimately China has long since rejected the Soviet model of rigid internal movement restrictions, so it must face up to the challenges that internal movement generates. One doesn't have to exoticize or idealize China here - it has porous borders surrounded by poorer countries, so it will face much the same kinds of problems that developed countries deal with, on a much larger scale, with much more constrained resources, and so it will pick not-pretty solutions. ronya fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Aug 13, 2023 |
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Aug 13, 2023 06:36
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Tomn posted:That being said to some degree internal messaging is just white noise to most people anyways - much the same way an American might react to the President proclaiming that America is a guarantor of democracy and freedom. To some extent it's expected that the government will make such noises but most people aren't going to take it that seriously. I wonder about this though; yeah in so many instances we can rightly call it a boldfaced lie, but when you had Americans being taught about their nations' strength of freedom and equality and fighting for the little guy for decades, we did eventually get to the point where people started asking questions about why that wasn't lining up with our actual international interactions and so imposing change, with Vietnam, GWOT. To an extent the decolonialist movement too, ironically. Tell the lie enough and it rubs off, and even if that's squarely contradictory with China's simultaneous glowing pride at its own imperialistic past, I don't think it's ridiculous that plenty of people even in important positions can hold the contradictory views and have them impact their actions along with the theoretical ideal. I will say it's interesting hearing about Chinese vs western imperialism in how that gets received in former western colonies vs former Chinese subjects. Even though it pales compared to Japan, most Koreans don't seem to be rosy on the comparison.
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Aug 13, 2023 09:48
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ronya posted:One doesn't have to exoticize or idealize China here - it has porous borders surrounded by poorer countries, so it will face much the same kinds of problems that developed countries deal with, on a much larger scale, with much more constrained resources, and so it will pick not-pretty solutions. There's also far deeper and broader coverage on the wrongs of Western companies in terms of worker and migrant exploitation. But that's on a backdrop of (some) freedom of the press, whistleblower rights, civil society organizations, and so forth. Who's making Chinese companies accountable for their wrongdoings when there's not even a free press in China? Who would want to be an investigative journalist there? Do people realize that even countries like UAE will confiscate your passport, lock you up, and not allow you to leave the country if you're caught talking bad about your employer?
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Aug 13, 2023 20:12
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i fly airplanes posted:Who's making Chinese companies accountable for their wrongdoings when there's not even a free press in China? Who would want to be an investigative journalist there? The Communist Party sometimes, but mostly the workers themselves taking direct action such as taking managers hostage
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Aug 13, 2023 21:52
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My own experience in Shanghai (anecdotal, but I doubt it’s possible to find any serious data, for obvious reasons) is that employers do not feel it necessary to follow the country’s labor laws, and employees have no true recourse when the employer doesn’t. There are clear standards for worker dormitories, for example, stating that workers can’t be made to live more than 2 people per room, and rooms can’t be below a certain size. But I think it would be laughable to actually expect that’s the case for the vast majority of workers in Shanghai. Employer behavior is governed by what they think they can get away with, not by the law.
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Aug 14, 2023 01:00
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Employer behavior is governed by what they think they can get away with, not by the law. Yeah, there's really not a lot of recourse for all but the most obscene (and attention-getting) worker rights violations. I used to write most stories of worker rights conditions in china off as much more hyperbolic, before I got a handful of firsthand accounts of what workers have ended up willing to do to protest egregious abuses even if they result in immediate and harsh legal reprisals. It's going to be weird to watch the future of labor strikes there, given that they're still very frequent post-covid.
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Aug 14, 2023 01:52
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https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/1691329120003842048 I'm phone posting otherwise I would not use Twitter or do some actual work here like compare China's youth employment rate to Europe or the US to see if it were bad. For me the interesting bit isn't that the indicator isn't looking great, but that the government is cutting back in providing data on it which is usually a very worrying sign.
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Aug 15, 2023 16:23
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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-suspends-data-youth-unemployment-rcna99929NBC News posted:Countries such as Italy and Sweden have reported youth unemployment figures similar to China’s. But China’s true rate could be even higher, up to 46.5%, if it includes those who are neither in school nor actively looking for work, a Chinese professor suggested last month in an article in respected Chinese financial magazine Caixin that was later censored. Hell of a footnote.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:10
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SlothfulCobra posted:https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-suspends-data-youth-unemployment-rcna99929 Does any country actually keep track of unemployment rates of those outside the labor pool though? e: I guess the corollary though is if China keeps track of the labor participation rate
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Aug 15, 2023 18:17
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eSports Chaebol posted:Does any country actually keep track of unemployment rates of those outside the labor pool though? Maybe I am misunderstanding what youth means in this context? I assume it’s labor age kids like 18-22 who would otherwise be in school? Duh it’s the first line there 16-22.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:18
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MarcusSA posted:Maybe I am misunderstanding what youth means in this context? The point is that NEETs are not considered "unemployed" though it's probably a statistic more worth tracking than the other non-unemployed non-workers
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Aug 15, 2023 18:21
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youth unemployment rate is historically one of the single biggest factors correlated to relatively explosive unrest potential. note that that's not to say that anything happening is inevitable (generally I'd argue to never assume anything like that), but it does make everything much, much more volatile.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:28
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eSports Chaebol posted:Does any country actually keep track of unemployment rates of those outside the labor pool though? Yes? It's why the US tracks 6 different unemployment metrics, and why the commonly cited U-3 (Unemployed, still looking) is often half the size of the "real" unemployment rate, the U-6 (unemployed, underemployed, marginally employed, and given up/discouraged). The number they're citing would be in the U-6.
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Aug 15, 2023 18:33
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eSports Chaebol posted:Does any country actually keep track of unemployment rates of those outside the labor pool though? Do you mean employment rate? I've always seen it as relatively common statistic even if unemployment rates are naturally the most common and talked about one. But employment rate gets talked about, especially in historical context of how gendered labour participation has changed over the years. But I remember it coming up for example in last elections we had in Finland..
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Aug 15, 2023 18:36
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looking at migrant unemployed estimates, the current stats don't look as bad as the 2009 shock, which was supposedly considerably worse (itself not as bad as the 1998 shock, i.e. the first growth slowdown after local govts ceased to effectively guarantee full employment, but in 1998 the rural absorption mechanism was still effective; China was still sitting on the far side of the Lewis transition. That is to say, urban marginally unemployed simply returned to the countryside. By 2009 however it observed in Chinese financial press that the countryside could not absorb so many urban migrants who had been away from the farms for so long. Note that for some of these official numbers only start in 2018 so we're spitballing based on conventional wisdom from reconstructed data)
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Aug 15, 2023 19:21
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Yes? It's why the US tracks 6 different unemployment metrics, and why the commonly cited U-3 (Unemployed, still looking) is often half the size of the "real" unemployment rate, the U-6 (unemployed, underemployed, marginally employed, and given up/discouraged). Also, I assume that even most governments that don't track U-6 themselves don't censor discussion of the U-6 rate.
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Aug 15, 2023 19:21
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eSports Chaebol posted:Does any country actually keep track of unemployment rates of those outside the labor pool though? true.spoon fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Aug 15, 2023 |
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Aug 15, 2023 20:59
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-15/hong-kong-resident-departures-climb-to-highest-since-covid Hong Kong emmigration is increasing.
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Aug 16, 2023 04:24
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i fly airplanes posted:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-15/hong-kong-resident-departures-climb-to-highest-since-covid I am trying to understand how that article and this one can both be true at the same time. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-15/hong-kong-s-population-rises-reversing-years-of-reporting-drops Unless they are just counting temporary residents differently?
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Aug 16, 2023 04:57
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MikeC posted:I am trying to understand how that article and this one can both be true at the same time. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-15/hong-kong-s-population-rises-reversing-years-of-reporting-drops Correct. HK (permanent) residents are a significant net decrease, whereas the overall population has increased (to 2019) due to worker visa/study/etc schemes.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:19
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i fly airplanes posted:Correct. HK (permanent) residents are a significant net decrease, whereas the overall population has increased (to 2019) due to worker visa/study/etc schemes. I would have thought those who were willing to leave had already left after the National Security Law was passed. No chance of the demographic breakdown on those numbers I presume.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:21
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MikeC posted:I would have thought those who were willing to leave had already left after the National Security Law was passed. No chance of the demographic breakdown on those numbers I presume. Anecdotal, but even if you WANT to move it may take time to get all the preparations sorted to do so, plus the idea of leaving home forever (as well as all the social networks you've built up) is unsurprisingly a bit of an emotional wrench for some even if you think it necessary. My parents for instance held off for a while mostly because my mother tends to dither on major issues but also because they were waiting for US immigration to process them and now they're working out the logistical issues of selling their apartment and moving to the US, all of which takes time. I've also heard a lot of stories of situations where one member of the family goes aboard first to test the waters, get a job and secure a future before calling back "OK, we're good to go, get everyone else and let's skedaddle." There's also people who were personally able to get out, but wanted to wait so that extended family who may not be able to benefit from the same immigration channels were able to get their poo poo sorted as well. All of this means there's plenty of folks who may have wanted to move, even immediately, but had to wait a bit to get all their ducks lined up.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:36
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Interesting. From my extended family and contacts, it was pretty clear-cut, and the moment the law passed they basically popped their escape hatches right away. Those who remain were deadset against leaving. Everyone is different I suppose.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:46
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MikeC posted:I would have thought those who were willing to leave had already left after the National Security Law was passed. No chance of the demographic breakdown on those numbers I presume. Don't forget that UK/Canada/US/etc had to make visa pathways for HKers for them to move—they can't just pick up and leave, though many did. There's even a few HKers that crossed over from the Mexican border to the US. Here's a list of various HK programs which the government launched to stem the migration: https://www.immd.gov.hk/publications/a_report_2021/en/chapter2.html Immigration is still not that open: by far the biggest categories are Foreign Domestic Workers and workers from the PRC.
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Aug 16, 2023 05:46
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