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https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/1725039984804253850 Really pulling out all the stops here - perhaps ping pong players are next
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Nov 16, 2023 10:11
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Taking back the pandas was such an odd move. It seems like it would only damage the perception of China in the eyes of US citizens, but as a power play it's kind of meaningless. It felt like the equivalent of a kid picking up their ball and taking it home.
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Nov 16, 2023 11:21
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I think it is really as simple as the Panda neglect went viral. There's a lot of talk about China as an authoritarian state, but they're notably vulnerable to public indignation; Foxconn scandals, Panda abuse, Elderly abuse, indentured servitude/slavery, it looks bad for a government ostensibly ruling from the consent of the people to ignore when an issue gains widespread notoriety, so at-minimum they want to look like they're dealing with these issues. Same reason for the comically long sessions where thousands of grievances nationwide are addressed. This can be used to positive (the above) ends, but also makes them vulnerable to more reactionary/long-term negative opinions (immigration, COVID lockdowns). Recalling the pandas was cheap and easy for them to do, and it was likely enticing to mess with depriving America, who usually gets anything they want, of this specifically. It just so happened to also coincide with the US enacting an inept trade war; could be used as part of an overall plan to voice diaspproval without worrying about blowback ala the US's tech sanctions massively invigorating China's domestic semiconductor industry. As for public approval: China may be falling into the USSR trap of assuming the US is willing to accept a multipolar world eventually, but I doubt they're naive enough to believe that public opinion influences US foreign policy, rather than the other way around.
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Nov 16, 2023 13:19
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I guess it was an issue of not being able to, or trying to, breed them in captivity? Because it just boggles my mind that a Western country wouldn't have plundered enough pandas at an early enough point to not have a captive breeding population outside of China.
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Nov 16, 2023 13:30
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This isn’t to diss pandas because they are amazing, but they also only really started to become notable in the public eye over the past like, 70 years or something. There wasn’t much interest in them in China or outside of it until surprisingly recently; they’re scarcely mentioned at all in premodern times.
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Nov 16, 2023 13:55
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I think they probably took off when photography became cheap. Because they're cute, and that's really all they have going for them. And without photos of them that's kind of hard to convey to anyone not currently living in a panda habitat.
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Nov 16, 2023 14:00
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There are very few things cuter than a pile of baby pandas.
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Nov 16, 2023 14:25
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Farming socities does not really care about animals. In farms, they are normallized kiling animals for food. In urban societies, animals are seen more like pets, to be loved and receive love from them. Pandas are kinda clumsy idiot animals that are cute and pretty. The more society become urbanite, the more is likelly a animal like that become object of adoration. I think society is changing to become more urbanite globally. Also the internet help spread this urbanite viewpoints.
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Nov 16, 2023 14:28
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Neurolimal posted:I think it is really as simple as the Panda neglect went viral. There's a lot of talk about China as an authoritarian state, but they're notably vulnerable to public indignation; Foxconn scandals, Panda abuse, Elderly abuse, indentured servitude/slavery, it looks bad for a government ostensibly ruling from the consent of the people to ignore when an issue gains widespread notoriety, so at-minimum they want to look like they're dealing with these issues. Same reason for the comically long sessions where thousands of grievances nationwide are addressed. Really? The Chinese government at the time had sent experts to the Memphis zoo in reaction to the online rumors, and even they concluded there was no neglect or malnourishment. The rumors only go viral to the degree that censors permit it to. But the online petition to bring them back to China had 150k signatures, which is hardly earth-moving.
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Nov 16, 2023 15:08
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well https://twitter.com/ReutersWorld/status/1725190032049278976 more precisely, https://twitter.com/YWNReporter/status/1724983302992392332 Dante80 fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Nov 16, 2023 |
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Nov 16, 2023 19:55
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He's not wrong in any sense, but it's absolutely stupid that the media is sticking to playing optics and this dumb headline given how much was accomplished at the actual APEC conference.
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Nov 17, 2023 00:52
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i fly airplanes posted:He's not wrong in any sense, but it's absolutely stupid that the media is sticking to playing optics and this dumb headline given how much was accomplished at the actual APEC conference. He's wrong in the sense that "a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours" is not the definition of a dictator, and none of those things are even elements of being a dictator. You could make the argument that China is a dictatorship if you want, but none of those things support that argument. Biden is just doing the whole "communism = evil" word association thing old people do. That is not okay for the most important diplomat in the entire country to be doing!
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Nov 17, 2023 02:41
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Xi has consolidated power around him as much as one can consolidate power in a country of a billion people, often relying on extra judicial means and purging political opponents from public life (and possibly from literal life). It's pretty fair to say that he's a dictator. We can split hairs about how communism != dictatorship, by pointing to [example not found], but fundamentally Biden is correct. He's just impolitic.
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Nov 17, 2023 02:53
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lol, didn't catch this the first time I saw the video.. https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1725270496294666707
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Nov 17, 2023 03:41
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Xi is the leader of a single party state where he never has to face competitive elections and he can make people who he finds embarrassing disappear and then arrest people who so much as mention this has happened. He’s the dictator of an authoritarian regime. If the U.S. is going to promote democracy abroad, as it should, it can’t just pretend that this isn’t true.
Ogmius815 fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Nov 17, 2023 |
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Nov 17, 2023 03:44
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Ogmius815 posted:Xi is the leader of a single party state where he never has to face competitive elections and he can make people who he finds embarrassing disappear and then arrest people who so much as mention this has happened. He’s the dictator of an authoritarian regime. If the U.S. is going to promote democracy abroad, as it should, it can’t just pretend that this isn’t true. The last US presidential election was between an octogenarian with dementia and a reality tv show host. I think the ad-hoc assumption that democracy is an inherently superior system for administering a nation state is getting a little fuzzy around the edges, and looking at the results on the ground in the US and China over the past 20 years or so, you could make a case that what Xi is doing just works better.
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Nov 17, 2023 04:06
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Dante80 posted:lol, didn't catch this the first time I saw the video.. Thanks for posting that. I have no idea if it was the right move for Biden, but I do agree that his explanation of why was terrible.
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Nov 17, 2023 04:07
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I think you could make a case that China has a better functioning meritocracy/technocracy than the US, but history does not reflect well on authoritarian rule. My inexpert opinion is that China’s growth and success was due to trends of decentralization of power that Xi Jinping is reversing, and long term centralization of power in one person is a recipe for disaster when that one person inevitably goes batshit crazy.
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Nov 17, 2023 04:11
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This discussion will benefit a ton if the definitions of Democracy, Dictatorship and Authoritarian can be clearly defined. The end result of 'free' elections and the present material conditions in the USA sure don't seem to align with 'Democracy' unless you wanna define it as Dictatorship of the Tiny Ruling Class (using what is effectively a single political party that differentiates factions on White CEOs vs. More Women CEOs).
Bald Stalin fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Nov 17, 2023 |
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Nov 17, 2023 04:28
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Bald Stalin posted:This discussion will benefit a ton if the definitions of Democracy, Dictatorship and Authoritarian can be clearly defined. The end result of 'free' elections and the present material conditions in the USA sure don't seem to align with 'Democracy' unless you wanna define it as Dictatorship of the Tiny Ruling Class (using what is effectively a single political party that differentiates factions on White CEOs vs. More Women CEOs). It's not necessary to respond to all the things wrong with your characterization of US government in this, the China Megathread, to say that China being at least authoritarian and nondemocratic is unambiguous.
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Nov 17, 2023 04:48
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I'd personally argue that a multi-party system isn't the core tenet of democracy. So long as the public is capable of electing representatives who have meaningful power in the system, then it has democratic elements. The Chinese political structure is a republic-democratic nesting doll; the public vote* for local party members, who in turn vote for the next level of the structure, repeat. The following infographic provided from China’s Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress by the US Congressional Research Service, Ostensibly, you vote for your representative, then your representative votes for the higher-ups that would best serve your interests. A single-party system has its benefits and drawbacks; on one hand everyone involve is more likely to collude with each other to retain power (as opposed to individual parties colluding with each other to retain power), on the other hand there's not an overarching necessity to take diametrically opposed positions to corner vote share; less likely that the Murder or Deport Minorities And Also Maybe Rape Isn't That Bad? Coalition manifests**, which unfortunately seems to be a concerningly common feature of multiparty systems. This isn't necessarily a statement of "Chinese politics is squeaky clean and works exactly as advertised", rather that, on-paper, it's as democratic as any other parliament-brained system. Obviously it's likely to not function that way, akin to how Western Democracies tend to not actually be very democratic. Bald Stalin posted:This discussion will benefit a ton if the definitions of Democracy, Dictatorship and Authoritarian can be clearly defined. The end result of 'free' elections and the present material conditions in the USA sure don't seem to align with 'Democracy' unless you wanna define it as Dictatorship of the Tiny Ruling Class (using what is effectively a single political party that differentiates factions on White CEOs vs. More Women CEOs). This is definitely something to keep in mind; there's a point to Democracy, which is that it's supposed to allow the public to vote for what they want, and then get what they want. So the question should probably be "Do the Chinese have what they want in their government?" Those bearish on China would argue that they do not; that the Chinese elites get what they want, and the opinions of the public are ignored. That the desires of the average citizen are ignored in favor of monied and connected interest groups which lobby to control the government's direction, that-  Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, by Martin Gilens and Benjamin J. Page * Local positions are vetted by the Central Committee, which obviously is a conflict of interests that supports the status quo. Akin to how most major parties in Western Democracies legally are under no obligation to allow candidates to run in their primaries. ** This unfortunately does not prevent provincial administrators inspired by the GWOT to come to power, as we saw from 2016-2021 in Xinjiang. Neurolimal fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Nov 17, 2023 |
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Nov 17, 2023 04:48
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Neurolimal posted:. This is my point. If we're looking at the results, and without defining these words, as far as we can tell if China is an authoritarian one party state that does the bidding of a tiny minority of people with power, to the detriment to the majority of it's population, then the US is as well.
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Nov 17, 2023 04:57
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Neurolimal posted:I'd personally argue that a multi-party system isn't the core tenet of democracy. So long as the public is capable of electing representatives who have meaningful power in the system, then it has democratic elements. The Chinese political structure is a republic-democratic nesting doll; the public vote* for local party members, who in turn vote for the next level of the structure, repeat. Holy lol. Do DPRK next. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 17, 2023 05:48
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Stringent posted:The last US presidential election was between an octogenarian with dementia and a reality tv show host. I think the ad-hoc assumption that democracy is an inherently superior system for administering a nation state is getting a little fuzzy around the edges, and looking at the results on the ground in the US and China over the past 20 years or so, you could make a case that what Xi is doing just works better. Trump sucks and Biden sux(I am not American). At least they can be removed from power without the need of being carried out in a pine box. I might hate the results of elections but at least I can say the populace deserved it since our leaders were voted in with peaceful means and with that have legitimacy.
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Nov 17, 2023 06:01
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it's very strange if the country of the People's Democratic Dictatorship (ch1 art1 of the constitution), where said dictating party maintains the two establishes that comrade Xi is the core of the party central committee and the whole party, and that Xi Jinping Thought is the central guiding thought, should be averse to concluding that said comrade Xi is the new great helmsman (so far Xi has been hailed only as the decider helmsman 果断舵手 but not the great helmsman 伟大舵手. Yes, this matters) the irony is that the Two Establishes have hardly the terror of Mao's cult of personality once, at least at present
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Nov 17, 2023 06:03
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Literally sitting in a room in KZ and showed that chart to my mother in law and grandma in law who remember the glorious freedom days of KSSR. They, to speak in internet language, lolled. They mainly remember that 1990 was the one election under glorious communism in which « independent » was allowed to stand against the pre-selected slate of (weirdly mostly russian) apparatchiks of Qazaqstan Kommunistik Partiasy* ** Not saying the US system is better or democratic at all, just saying lol it’s slightly moreso than that and you’re a theory-poisoned goofball if you think otherwise *it was supposed to be spelled in cyrillic at the time because Comrade Stalin loved all peoples’ education and the kazakh people’s choice of literacy was wrong **both banned by a member of KCP and shattered into a million infighting factions of 12 people who do nothing but sign deals with equally useless wannabe soviets from Canada to Thailand
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Nov 17, 2023 06:18
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In theory a multi-party system isn't necessary for "democracy". In theory parties aren't necessary at all. In practice, people do need to be able to organize into factions within the democracy to get anything done, and if you have a single-party system it pushes all the politicking into closed-door backrooms, since the internal organization of the party itself is subject to less overall scrutiny compared to the actual government as a whole. And if different ideas can't be represented in government, much less even have a chance at taking hold, everything sinks into an insular autocracy, increasingly uninterested in dealing with issues that might make things awkward for the ruling class. At that point, somebody climbing to the top to appoint themselves a dictator to smash the minor intra-party opposition is practically a mercy. KillHour posted:He's wrong in the sense that "a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours" is not the definition of a dictator, and none of those things are even elements of being a dictator. He's putting it diplomatically because it would be much more awkward to go into all the details about how the guy who rules unquestioned and has his "thought" legally codified next to other known-dictator Mao Zedong's and on many occasions has suppressed democracy and speech is a dictator, but well he's not-not a dictator. I don't think Xi even really wants to go through a charade of being "a democracy" even if he wants to put on shows of procedure and demonstrations of public approval. I have the impression that every so often he scoffs at how messy open democracy in other countries is. Much cleaner to have everything behind closed doors. Messy things I guess like the press just deciding to ask awkward leading questions at a diplomatic event, and you gotta say something.
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Nov 17, 2023 06:41
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Neurolimal posted:there's a point to Democracy, which is that it's supposed to allow the public to vote for what they want, and then get what they want. So the question should probably be "Do the Chinese have what they want in their government?" I think another point to democracy is that it’s supposed to ensure accountability and rule of law by making it possible for powerful individuals to be removed from their position by forces outside of the government itself. In most democracies it further means people in leadership are rotated out relatively frequently and cannot guarantee their successors. This makes it more likely for power to be distributed across a system of checks and balances and for it to be necessary for leaders to face and consider opposing ideas. I think the practical dimension of multi-party democracy outweighs the moral dimension, though that is also considerable. China, after Deng Xiaoping, obviously attempted to implement some policies to ensure that it’s government at least enjoyed some of those practical advantages without actually being a democracy. Unfortunately, there was nothing to stop an autocratic leader from simply undoing those policies. Of course, as we can see with the US, democracy also requires enough of the people in power to actually believe in the rule of law and not just stop playing by the rules. It also doesn’t prevent one party from being captured by nihilistic forces and becoming hell bent on the destruction of the role of government as provider of public goods. But that’s beside the point in the China thread.
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Nov 17, 2023 07:06
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Stringent posted:The last US presidential election was between an octogenarian with dementia and a reality tv show host. I think the ad-hoc assumption that democracy is an inherently superior system for administering a nation state is getting a little fuzzy around the edges, and looking at the results on the ground in the US and China over the past 20 years or so, you could make a case that what Xi is doing just works better. Only if there's a hell of a lot of work done to ignore where dictatorships end up, where the early advantages turn consistently south Even China seemed to be worried about that particularly reliable concern! that's why there were a lot of power sharing systems and anti-consolidation-of-power stopgaps baked into their party systems that Xi had to work to tear through and render toothless as part of his consolidation of power
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Nov 17, 2023 07:32
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KillHour posted:He's wrong in the sense that "a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours" is not the definition of a dictator, and none of those things are even elements of being a dictator. Oh yes, I agree you totally. He is both a dictator and the definition provided, even if that's not what the definition of a dictator is. For a fun follow up, you can really empathize with Blinken here: https://x.com/jason_howerton/status/1725254297552933177?s=46
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Nov 17, 2023 07:33
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Neurolimal posted:
My man, in the last set of US presidential election primaries the Republican candidate was not a member of the Republican party, and the main challenger to the Democratic candidate was not a member of the democratic party. The US is way down the list of ideal democratic systems but outsider challenge to established power centres is actually a real thing. e: and you know this why is why you veered to 'most countries'. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 09:06 on Nov 17, 2023 |
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Nov 17, 2023 09:03
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edit: nah
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Nov 17, 2023 09:43
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ronya posted:it would be politically suicidal for Ko to run on a junior ticket given that a KMT government in the next term will certainly seek to undo CIPAS asset seizures and thereby mitigate its need for a junior partner to begin with Or maybe Ko doesn't have secret polling that indicates an advantage that the KMT doesn't know about, and is just a dumbass: https://frozengarlic.wordpress.com/2023/11/16/ko-gets-rolled/ https://twitter.com/erinhale/status/1725337682723881205
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Nov 17, 2023 12:54
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ronya posted:Or maybe Ko doesn't have secret polling that indicates an advantage that the KMT doesn't know about, and is just a dumbass: Yes the more that comes out, Ko just looks dumber and dumber.
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Nov 17, 2023 13:04
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Dante80 posted:well I am too stupid to understand this. Surelly, theres a strategy to this I don't know and can't understand.
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Nov 17, 2023 13:35
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Tei posted:I am too stupid to understand this. Surelly, theres a strategy to this I don't know and can't understand. Other people have already talked about it, but Biden can’t not say that without opening himself up to attacks about being too friendly with China. A negative opinion of China is one of the only things both parties agree on in the US, so any mainstream politician will have to say things like this if directly asked by a journalist. I don’t know if Biden would have wanted to say that on his own, but once the journalist asked him directly, he pretty much had to, particularly given his vulnerability in recent polling.
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Nov 17, 2023 14:47
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He certainly could have phrased it in a much more political manner.
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Nov 17, 2023 15:00
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Stringent posted:The last US presidential election was between an octogenarian with dementia and a reality tv show host. I think the ad-hoc assumption that democracy is an inherently superior system for administering a nation state is getting a little fuzzy around the edges, and looking at the results on the ground in the US and China over the past 20 years or so, you could make a case that what Xi is doing just works better. You can argue that if you like, but it doesn't make Xi any less of a dictator.
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Nov 17, 2023 15:43
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Any nation without functioning trade unions is a dictatorship of some kind.
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Nov 17, 2023 15:45
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Nenonen posted:You can argue that if you like, but it doesn't make Xi any less of a dictator. It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.
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Nov 17, 2023 15:56
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