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Grape
Nov 16, 2017

Happily shilling for China!

So get this... there's one guy above everything in charge ....until he dies! How about THEM apples!

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Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!

Atlas Hugged posted:

The girls in Pirate Radar's story were usually considered a "prize" by his friends for being able to out wait the bar until it closed so they wouldn't have to pay the bar fine.

There was one guy who was really into that “lifehack”, but in a lot of other cases it really was just picking up Thai girls from bars or Tinder and you don’t (always) get the direct exchange of money-for-services like that. One guy started using Tinder as a maid service because he had nothing even resembling shame and it was so common that you’d get a girl over to your place and she’d start cleaning because men not being able to clean up after themselves is just considered normal in Thailand.

Teachers in Thailand are a loving weird bunch.

Johnny Five-Jaces
Jan 21, 2009


bajaj you need to marry CG

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless

ladron posted:

but...but...you're the plunger! the chosen one! you were supposed to bring balance to the folds!
I plunged not out of need, but necessity. I honestly wanted to find a girlfriend when I arrived in China last time. One and done. I had more dates than I can count, and 90% of the first meetings went like:

Her: "My family wants me to get married this year."
Me: "I'm not ready for that."
Her: "YOU DON'T WANT MARRIAGE???????????????????????????"
Me: "I'm not thinking about it at this point, sorry. We just started talking three days ago and this is our first time meeting."
Her: "YOU'RE JUST TRYING TO WASTE MY TIME AND USE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 EVERYONE SAID FOREIGNERS ARE BAD!!!! JUST SEE!!!"

When I arrived last time I went in giving myself a six month limit, extendable if I wanted, but also weary of trying to do longer if I wasn't happy. My boss was fine with me bailing, since we were good and regular friends before the job came up. Telling local women you're only there 6-12 months and/or not immediately jumping into marriage left me without the more-stable women that logically saw that they didn't want to possibly fall in love with someone who would leave eventually.
So, this left me with: Foreigner chasers, FWBs, women pretending to be single but actually with boyfriends or husbands and wanting to get a fling in and ghost me immediately (this happened way too much, it was annoying), and simply a lot of regular friends. I wasn't chasing down sex, but it was very often that it would happen and then she would get really mixed up and realize her cultural programming wouldn't allow her to be casual, and then I'd start getting heavy marriage demands. I had one tell me she was going to get pregnant and say the baby was mine. After a while I got jaded and gave up making sense of it, gave up the idea for a girlfriend, and focused on enjoying my personal time alone doing what I liked best (such as walking, skateboarding, games, etc.).

Chaoshan Girl was my best friend there, and still is one of my best friends in general. We talk anything and we are rude as hell to each other due to closeness. Familiarity breeds contempt, but we always patch things up. We make fun of each other for almost everything, but it's endearing. She often makes fun of the women I have met (her favorite being the Mongol, jokingly checking my floor for piles of pubes since that was a big complaint I had), and I make fun of her for her weird ways of handling problems or how shocked she gets over basic stuff.

We're a little too close, but her more than me. She can't share a single worry or idea with her regular friends because of how strict their culture is, and they all think she's a kissless virgin or face being ostracized. This allows her to see me as her unloading station for all sorts of things I don't normally hear/see from other people. One day I opened up Wechat to find a few super upclose photos of a butt hole with the question "What is that on the hole?" She had a hemorrhoid from straining. She didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary to share this with me.
My favorite thing to make fun of her for was the time she got upset about I don't know what and blocked me for two weeks, missing my birthday. She showed up at my door at like 10pm the day after my birthday completely loving hammered. She doesn't drink at all, and she lived about 17km away from me, and I have no idea how she didn't faceplant on the subway. "LEMME USE YOUR SOFA, I NEED TO SLEEP. I HAD TWO BOTTLES OF BEER, YOU DON'T KNOW." She stumbled around my house and gave me the birthday gift she bought for me. "YOU CAN USE THIS, BUT NOT TODAY, I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU WEAR IT BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE ME SAD." It was an eye-cover for sleeping. I promptly took out my phone and started taking photos of her and videos, since I knew she would hate to see them when she was sober. She got upset, laid on my yoga mat, called a taxi, rolled around on the ground, climbed in to my bed, asked for water, the taxi called, and she said I am too cruel to not let her use my sofa, and she went out to her taxi. I saw her drunk one more time after that, and I again took photos of her dumb face.
I still send her those photos sometimes when she's being moody, and she gets really embarrassed and stops being moody. I kept one of the butt hole photos and when she's being rude I tell her to stop acting like a [butt hole] and she gets upset and tells me that it's her business and I shouldn't pay attention to that. Like, LOL, don't send me a photo of your b-hole if you don't want me spamming it to you to antagonize you.

There was another Chaoshan Woman that I rarely posted about. We spent a decent amount of time together and she was really sweet. Despite me leaving not long after we met, she fell madly in love with me and wanted to follow me to anywhere I went. She told me to tell her when, and she would book tickets to India and Thailand, or help me come back to Shenzhen any time. She was true sweetheart. I told CG about her and CG said "if you met her when you first arrived to China, you never would have met all those crazy ladies because she would have been your girlfriend." She was right. Despite how retarded Chaoshan culture is, it's funny to me that two of the nicest people I knew in China were Chaoshan.

Shenzhen isn't bad at all, even if it's a little boring at times. I realized my biggest mistake being in China last time was not taking breaks. Had I left China every 3-4 months for a week in anywhere not-China, it would have been enough to calm me down. Spending over a year there without any pause in the Mainlanditity started building and pushing me to a breaking point. I realized this a few weeks after leaving the place. My Japanese friend that's been there way too long leaves 5-6 times per year to get a break, and she always told me it was required. I think had I done that myself, taking an extended weekend outside China multiple times, I might still be there now. For how retarded the place is sometimes (many times), it's so predictable that it's easy to fall into a lull when you get into it.

I have no idea where I am going with this blog post.

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless

Pirate Radar posted:

There was one guy who was really into that “lifehack”, but in a lot of other cases it really was just picking up Thai girls from bars or Tinder and you don’t (always) get the direct exchange of money-for-services like that. One guy started using Tinder as a maid service because he had nothing even resembling shame and it was so common that you’d get a girl over to your place and she’d start cleaning because men not being able to clean up after themselves is just considered normal in Thailand.

Teachers in Thailand are a loving weird bunch.
I found out from some falangs that the million girls on Tinder that say "I am looking for a travel partner to X local island/destination" actually mean "You pay for me to have this trip around Thailand and I'll gently caress you for it." It's easier for them because they can be picky about who they choose. I always wondered why Thai girls were looking for "travel partners" on a dating app, because the idea of traveling with a complete stranger sounds scary and sketchy. Then it all made sense. One guy told me he knew a few guys that used this non-prostitution-but-still-prostitution scheme. You're not giving them money, just a hotel room and food and travel expenses, right? lol

Edit: There seems to be a lot of guys that are so silly that they would rather pay a woman to do this and book the hotels and bus/train/air tickets and help them find food and taxis instead of going it alone. For how utterly easy it is to travel and do things yourself without knowing a word of Thai here, it's funny to me.

Bajaj fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Mar 10, 2018

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

When you were in India you really sounded so relieved to be away from China and chinese women, but Thailand makes you almost sound nostalgic for it all.

What's so uniquely weird about Thai women? Your bloggin' has painted a pretty clear picture of Chinese online dating culture and the sorts of people you'll meet, but I haven't gotten a clear picture of your impressions of Thai culture other than that it's just too much for you to deal with.

ladron
Sep 15, 2007

eso es lo que es

Bajaj posted:

There seems to be a lot of guys that are so silly that they would rather pay a woman to do this and book the hotels and bus/train/air tickets and help them find food and taxis instead of going it alone. For how utterly easy it is to travel and do things yourself without knowing a word of Thai here, it's funny to me.

I realize you're notoriously cheap, but they're loving the women

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?


I've wanted to travel around China and see things but every time a vacation comes up I am so desperate to get the gently caress away from here for a bit.

Of course, after a month in Japan, enjoying the life in A Good Country, you come back here and are just loving enraged for weeks and weeks at everything.

simplefish
Mar 28, 2011

So long, and thanks for all the fish gallbladdΣrs!


I loved my week in Bombay/Mumbai. Was less than thrilled to be coming back to HK. Can't imagine how I'd have felt if I lived in Deepest Darkest Mainland. But part of that will be that Real Life is not as good as a holiday no matter where you live.

I wanna do Harbin and Chengdu again, those were chill fuckin places to visit.

Fleta Mcgurn
Oct 5, 2003

Porpoise noise continues.

Grand Fromage posted:

I've wanted to travel around China and see things but every time a vacation comes up I am so desperate to get the gently caress away from here for a bit.

Of course, after a month in Japan, enjoying the life in A Good Country, you come back here and are just loving enraged for weeks and weeks at everything.

Have you tried travel-pimping your dick on Tinder?

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless

Baronjutter posted:

When you were in India you really sounded so relieved to be away from China and chinese women, but Thailand makes you almost sound nostalgic for it all.
India was cool but it's like a world away from nearly everything, so that makes it stand out on its own. It was refreshing to get out of China, but India comes with its own set of problems in other ways. Plus, I had such a routine in China that taking me out of it made me kinda bummed. Imagine going for long walks and rides every day on wide sidewalks, living a block away from a Metro, having access to all sorts of products you take for granted, big hills to walk around, trees everywhere, etc., and then oops, all gone. No sidewalks, lovely roads, like no loving trees, less products you want, public transport is basically using the power of your own diarrhea stream to fly around the road, and a host of other problems that take time to get used to. I was trying my best but once I started getting sick all the time from who knows what, I bailed instead of moving to a different city/state because the cost and headache ratio would have been really bad. I had several options, but I didn't want to hemorrhage money into the next city or house, so I finally gave into my dad's wish to be near him. I have great friends there and we are real close, but I had to get out.

Thailand is much cleaner and easier to be in, and I can go out find nearly any product and food I would want back in the West, or across Asia, and rents are cheap and good, people are pretty friendly. Bangkok loving blows as a city to go outside in. The air quality is atrocious, and you can taste the exhaust when walking on the roads. You can't even ride a bicycle in this dump, and why would anyone? The sidewalks are a mess. I honestly do not enjoy my time in this city, especially as I am not near the train so I have to rely on taxis and motorbikes if I don't want to sweat half to death walking to where i want to go. Motorbikes piss me off because the prices at the stalls are listed right behind the guys but they ask for double because I am foreign and they know I have no other option, so they act all fake angry or something when I walk away, which I will because I am not supporting that bullshit. I had some dude rip his helmet off and slam it down like I was cheating him out of money when I wouldn't agree to his price before I got on, despite showing him on the sign what the real price is. "You falang, you pay!!!" Sorry, dude.
My dad is bummed I will leave, but I have to. I hate this place, even as a teen I didn't care for it, but as an adult it simply doesn't match me. Maybe if I drank and liked bars and tossin around locals, but that's not me.

So, when I remember how frustrating but routine I had it in a place like Shenzhen, which didn't have the air quality and issues of India or Bangkok for doing what I like, then I recognize it does have its merits. I didn't have retarded coworkers, I didn't have students, I didn't have a dumb boss or manager. I had it really easy compared to most foreigners there. My pedometer tells me I walked almost 3000Km around that city in my time there, and on my skateboard who knows how many more kilometers. I knew it as well as my hometown, which is like 1/20th the size. The city itself I actually liked a lot, it was just all the face-havers everywhere outside and inside that made it tear-inducing and frustrating. Spring Festival there was amazing. The roads and sidewalks were empty for a full week or more, and I was out until 2-3am every night cruising around, taking pictures and sipping baby's first juice alcohol cans.

I lost a lot of money in that India attempt when I left, trying to get the house set up, especially since all services are paid in advance 6-12 month chunks. Bangkok sucks, but I am here to make my old man happy. CG pointed out that had I just stayed in Shenzhen and did my simple online job and maybe tutored an adult here and there for weekend cash, I wouldn't have lost the $2000 I did trying to build a new life somewhere else and buying airplane tickets and leases and deposits and whatnot over the past 7 months, not gotten sick and dealt with side-effects of medicine and weight gain, could have kept doing what I was doing, and still been on a typical frustration level that comes once settling happens. Who knows, but I see her point.

Baronjutter posted:

What's so uniquely weird about Thai women? Your bloggin' has painted a pretty clear picture of Chinese online dating culture and the sorts of people you'll meet, but I haven't gotten a clear picture of your impressions of Thai culture other than that it's just too much for you to deal with.
I will just say that all the annoying, weird, and cool things about my Thai family and the friends I know are actually annoying, weird, and cool things about Thais in general, and I've reached a tipping point for having the patience to deal with all of that. On top of that, and most importantly, my sister has a very generic Thai face despite being mixed, and her obnoxious cultural traits she picked up from her female friends growing up here make me feel like many of the women I see outside kinda look like my sister, and they definitely act like her, and that's a huge "gently caress no" from me, with a bit of "my dick rolling into my pelvis" on the side. Add a dash of Thais seeing us all as outsiders and pulling you "YOU FALANG" card every chance they get, and that's going to be a double "gently caress no" from me.

Thais are like peeling onions in a way, and they have face culture on top, though it's different than Chinese face culture. You reach a point where you have no idea where you really stand with them, and there's a pack mentality going on with the culture and thought that many will never break out of. On top of that there's the mother obsession, filial piety (exactly or worse than China), and skewed view of karma and "poo poo happens" that is pervasive in the culture, and it can get frustrating with someone being a certain way and then shrugging it off saying "it is what it is" instead of taking responsibility for their actions and methods.
Kind of like Chinese with rote-memorized questions and answers for all aspects of life and health, Thais have these bits and pieces about stuff that are going to come back and annoy you at some point. There's a ton going behind the scenes, and a lot of things big and (sometimes very) small that they hold on to and get angry about. Thais really like bottling things up on top of it, so not only are you unsure of where you stand, but you're unknowingly close to a full-blown rage tantrum that's itching to burst out.
If I want to be petty, I've never known a foreign guy my age or younger married to a Thai woman, while it was extremely common in China. I've honestly heard/met of a lot of guys that had girlfriends for 5-10 years here, but only the old lonely guys were the ones that married them. I don't know the reasons for that, but at the same I get it.

I always knew where I stood with Chinese people, and I can respect that.

simplefish posted:

I loved my week in Bombay/Mumbai. Was less than thrilled to be coming back to HK. Can't imagine how I'd have felt if I lived in Deepest Darkest Mainland. But part of that will be that Real Life is not as good as a holiday no matter where you live.

I wanna do Harbin and Chengdu again, those were chill fuckin places to visit.
I couldn't handle more than two days in Mumbai after living in a mid-tier Indian city, so it's all relative. Delhi was hell on Earth in every possible way. Kolkata really owned because I did the perfect "get in and get out" trips there and I got to enjoy all the good stuff without having to be stuck looking at it for too long. I would definitely recommend Kolkata because all the of old British stuff including the museum is near the river and you don't need a taxi to get around that area, and you can walk all day looking at old buildings around there and taking photos, without being too far from a toilet. It's a very popular area, so all the food, shopping, and sightseeing can be handled with Google Maps and some close-toed shoes. Go take some selfies up on Howrah Bridge, etc.

Going somewhere new and cool for a really short time lifts the spirits up a bit and is able to take you out of the mental funk and put you in a new place. If the place is really poo poo, it's even better because you tend to appreciate other things once you leave.

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all
My buddy married a Thai. Seems happy enough. He met her in Australia while she was finishing her graduate degree in Chemical Engineering or something so she's not the typical Isaan girl a lot of foreigners seem to end up with.

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!
There are plenty of people who marry Thais and have normal, healthy relationships, they’re just overshadowed by the people who are complete trainwrecks.

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless

Pirate Radar posted:

There are plenty of people who marry Thais and have normal, healthy relationships, they’re just overshadowed by the people who are complete trainwrecks.
NO, my anecdotal evidence mea

LimburgLimbo
Feb 10, 2008

Pirate Radar posted:

There are plenty of people who... have normal, healthy relationships, they’re just overshadowed by the people who are complete trainwrecks.

Asia expats.txt

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse
I don't get the need for picking up your life and moving around. Places with lots of humans around are cancer, why even go there? It's like punching yourself in the face.

Maybe I'm in an ok place with so few people that I have to meet in person. I'm having some coffee, and the sun is shining through the window. Tengri smiles in blue.

Life is ok.

Vesi
Jan 12, 2005

pikachu looking at?

Pirate Radar
Apr 18, 2008

You're not my Ruthie!
You're not my Debbie!
You're not my Sherry!
After a bit in Thailand I started meeting people and just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like, “okay, so tell me how you’re a living disaster area of a human being?”

bring back old gbs
Feb 28, 2007

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

oh dear

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse
I'm not sure what they sell there, but the answer probably is "yes".

Stanky Bean
Dec 30, 2004

Next door is "Fido's family butcher shop"

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse
Awesome post/av combo

angel opportunity
Sep 7, 2004

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Bajaj posted:

I plunged not out of need, but necessity. I honestly wanted to find a girlfriend when I arrived in China last time. One and done. I had more dates than I can count, and 90% of the first meetings went like:

Her: "My family wants me to get married this year."
Me: "I'm not ready for that."
Her: "YOU DON'T WANT MARRIAGE???????????????????????????"
Me: "I'm not thinking about it at this point, sorry. We just started talking three days ago and this is our first time meeting."
Her: "YOU'RE JUST TRYING TO WASTE MY TIME AND USE ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 EVERYONE SAID FOREIGNERS ARE BAD!!!! JUST SEE!!!"

When I arrived last time I went in giving myself a six month limit, extendable if I wanted, but also weary of trying to do longer if I wasn't happy. My boss was fine with me bailing, since we were good and regular friends before the job came up. Telling local women you're only there 6-12 months and/or not immediately jumping into marriage left me without the more-stable women that logically saw that they didn't want to possibly fall in love with someone who would leave eventually.
So, this left me with: Foreigner chasers, FWBs, women pretending to be single but actually with boyfriends or husbands and wanting to get a fling in and ghost me immediately (this happened way too much, it was annoying), and simply a lot of regular friends. I wasn't chasing down sex, but it was very often that it would happen and then she would get really mixed up and realize her cultural programming wouldn't allow her to be casual, and then I'd start getting heavy marriage demands. I had one tell me she was going to get pregnant and say the baby was mine. After a while I got jaded and gave up making sense of it, gave up the idea for a girlfriend, and focused on enjoying my personal time alone doing what I liked best (such as walking, skateboarding, games, etc.).

Chaoshan Girl was my best friend there, and still is one of my best friends in general. We talk anything and we are rude as hell to each other due to closeness. Familiarity breeds contempt, but we always patch things up. We make fun of each other for almost everything, but it's endearing. She often makes fun of the women I have met (her favorite being the Mongol, jokingly checking my floor for piles of pubes since that was a big complaint I had), and I make fun of her for her weird ways of handling problems or how shocked she gets over basic stuff.

We're a little too close, but her more than me. She can't share a single worry or idea with her regular friends because of how strict their culture is, and they all think she's a kissless virgin or face being ostracized. This allows her to see me as her unloading station for all sorts of things I don't normally hear/see from other people. One day I opened up Wechat to find a few super upclose photos of a butt hole with the question "What is that on the hole?" She had a hemorrhoid from straining. She didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary to share this with me.
My favorite thing to make fun of her for was the time she got upset about I don't know what and blocked me for two weeks, missing my birthday. She showed up at my door at like 10pm the day after my birthday completely loving hammered. She doesn't drink at all, and she lived about 17km away from me, and I have no idea how she didn't faceplant on the subway. "LEMME USE YOUR SOFA, I NEED TO SLEEP. I HAD TWO BOTTLES OF BEER, YOU DON'T KNOW." She stumbled around my house and gave me the birthday gift she bought for me. "YOU CAN USE THIS, BUT NOT TODAY, I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU WEAR IT BECAUSE IT WILL MAKE ME SAD." It was an eye-cover for sleeping. I promptly took out my phone and started taking photos of her and videos, since I knew she would hate to see them when she was sober. She got upset, laid on my yoga mat, called a taxi, rolled around on the ground, climbed in to my bed, asked for water, the taxi called, and she said I am too cruel to not let her use my sofa, and she went out to her taxi. I saw her drunk one more time after that, and I again took photos of her dumb face.
I still send her those photos sometimes when she's being moody, and she gets really embarrassed and stops being moody. I kept one of the butt hole photos and when she's being rude I tell her to stop acting like a [butt hole] and she gets upset and tells me that it's her business and I shouldn't pay attention to that. Like, LOL, don't send me a photo of your b-hole if you don't want me spamming it to you to antagonize you.

There was another Chaoshan Woman that I rarely posted about. We spent a decent amount of time together and she was really sweet. Despite me leaving not long after we met, she fell madly in love with me and wanted to follow me to anywhere I went. She told me to tell her when, and she would book tickets to India and Thailand, or help me come back to Shenzhen any time. She was true sweetheart. I told CG about her and CG said "if you met her when you first arrived to China, you never would have met all those crazy ladies because she would have been your girlfriend." She was right. Despite how retarded Chaoshan culture is, it's funny to me that two of the nicest people I knew in China were Chaoshan.

Shenzhen isn't bad at all, even if it's a little boring at times. I realized my biggest mistake being in China last time was not taking breaks. Had I left China every 3-4 months for a week in anywhere not-China, it would have been enough to calm me down. Spending over a year there without any pause in the Mainlanditity started building and pushing me to a breaking point. I realized this a few weeks after leaving the place. My Japanese friend that's been there way too long leaves 5-6 times per year to get a break, and she always told me it was required. I think had I done that myself, taking an extended weekend outside China multiple times, I might still be there now. For how retarded the place is sometimes (many times), it's so predictable that it's easy to fall into a lull when you get into it.

I have no idea where I am going with this blog post.

https://twitter.com/itdoesnteggs/status/971354786653265922

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless
http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/five-biggest-myths-about-china/news-story/af0705d457a6f79885ae5aa60c64e7f8

Five biggest myths about China

THERE IS a lot of misinformation about China. These are the major myths surrounding China, debunked by experts.

IS CHINA a global superpower? Are its citizens oppressed by communism? Can Beijing contain Pyongyang?

There are a lot of myths about China — many propagated by the party’s own state media. But what’s real and what's not?

Here are some of the major myths surrounding China debunked by experts.

CHINA IS A GLOBAL MILITARY SUPERPOWER

China’s defence budget has maintained double-digit growth since 1995. Recently, the Communist government announced an 8.1 per cent increase to 1.1 trillion yuan.

Given that China currently boasts the second-largest military budget spending in the world — behind only the United States — it’s easy to assume the country is now a global superpower.

But National Interest argues that in order to constitute “superpower”, a country must be able to project their military capabilities globally. China, the article notes, remains more or less bound to East Asia.

Its artificial military constructions on the South China Sea are controversial, but they are vulnerable to attack and offer diminishing returns for operations beyond the Nine-Dash Line.

In other words, they’re limited to the region around China.

The article also notes that China has not fought a war since 1979; its military remains untested and its officers don’t have the same combat experience as its US counterparts.

All things considered, it could be decades before China is capable of projecting military power on a global scale.

That said, a top Pentagon official recently warned the country’s military might is growing.

Earlier this week General Robert Ashley, Director of the US Intelligence Agency, warned China is “developing and fielding numerous advanced, long-range land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, some capable of reaching supersonic speeds, operated from ground, air, ship, and submarine platforms”.

He also said China is working on a bomber with a nuclear mission, which would give Beijing a nuclear triad of land, air and sea-based nuclear weapon systems.

CHINA IS RETURNING TO ITS “NATURAL PLACE” IN THE WORLD

Beijing has argued that its territorial pursuits in the South China Sea, as well as its claims over Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong, are historically justified.

Experts say China sees its rise to power as a return to “the natural order of things” — they basically believe this is their fate or destiny. The country also sees itself as Asia’s “father figure” — a central patriarch of sorts.

This is a view that stems from the highest level of government — President Xi Jinping — down through to the poorest ranks of the country’s 1.357 billion population.

Writing in The Australian, former head of China analysis for the Defence Intelligence Organisation Paul Monk dismisses this as “complete nonsense”.

“It is simply untrue to say that China’s borders have been fixed in place for any length of time since, say, the era of the warring states between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC,” he says. “Second, very large swathes of them, as pointed out above, were annexed to a Beijing-based regime by the foreign Manchus (the Qing dynasty) only in the 17th and 18th centuries.”

He also dismisses the idea that China was ever the world’s “greatest power”, saying that — in its better eras — it was simply among several states around the world with regional power.

CHINA IS A COMMUNIST COUNTRY WITH NO FREEDOM

The Chinese Communist Party has ruled China since 1949, but much has changed since the end of the Mao dynasty.

In the old days, the CCP controlled every aspect of every citizen’s life, including where they could work and live. But individual freedom — while still regulated compared to that of western countries — has grown massively over the past three decades.

For every social media app the Chinese government has censored — like Facebook and Twitter — the country has its own equivalent, like Weibo and WeChat. It’s also relatively easy to bypass the Great Firewall with a VPN.

In a recent interview with news.com.au, Richard McGregor, senior fellow at the Lowy Institute and author of The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers, said it was no longer technically accurate to call China a communist country.

“In the simplest terms, China is not a communist country but it has a communist government,” he said.

CHINA HOLDS NORTH KOREA IN THE PALM OF ITS HAND

China and North Korea share a long border, several millennia of history and deep ideological roots. Beijing is essentially Pyongyang’s economic lifeline, responsible for most of its trade and oil.

But the myth of Chinese power over the hermit state is just that — a myth. According to Associated Press, the neighbours operate in a near constant state of tension, a mix of ancient distrust and dislike and the grating knowledge that they are inextricably tangled up with each other.

As China looks outward to Asia and the Americas, many resent being dragged down by the third-world dictatorship that is North Korea.

Even The Global Times, China’s Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, downplayed its role in the crisis in an editorial last year: “Since the UN Security Council began to impose sanctions on North Korea in 2006, China has paid the highest economic and diplomatic price. China-North Korean relations started to chill at that time. It has been six years since top leaders of the two countries exchanged visits.”

This growing disdain is reflected in China’s willingness to permit criticism of the North in the press, and to allow tougher sanctions at the U.N.

Beijing has suspended coal, iron ore, seafood and textiles from the North. Although North Korea takes pride in its ability to absorb pain, be it war, famine, sanctions or condemnation, China’s tougher line will rob Pyongyang of key sources of foreign currency.

At the same time, China fears that the collapse of Pyongyang could mean North Korean refugees flood into its northeast after Seoul takes power of Pyongyang.

CHINA IS PROGRESSIVE ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS

During the Mao era, the Communist party famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky” on the state broadcaster CCTV.

But the belief that gender equality exists in China is completely unfounded.

On the latest Global Gender Gap Report, which ranks 144 countries on their progress towards gender parity, China ranked 100th.

Yesterday, Reuters reported that Chinese women’s rights activists were furious because International Women’s Day was dominated by sales campaigns from online retailers, when it should have been used to make progress on issues like sexual harassment.

A 2016 online survey of university students found that nearly 70 per cent of respondents, aged 18 to 22, had experienced some form of sexual harassment on-campus.

Similarly, a 2013 survey by China Labour Bulletin found that 70 per cent of the surveyed factory workers reported being sexually harassed at the workplace.

But unlike in Western countries, where large-scale protests and campaigns can and do take place, women in China face additional battles with an authoritarian government in power.

In several cases of protest, the response of Chinese authorities has been simply to silence them.

For example, the hashtag #MeToo was swiftly blocked on the Chinese internet shortly after it began to gain traction, prompting activists to adopt the code #RiceBunny instead.

Deadly Ham Sandwich
Aug 19, 2009
Smellrose
#RiceBunny

Kharnifex
Sep 11, 2001

The Banter is better in AusGBS
news.com.au is cancerous, and run by 18 year olds.

Bajaj
Sep 13, 2017

by FactsAreUseless

Kharnifex posted:

news.com.au is cancerous, and run by 18 year olds.
Does that negate myth busting going on in the article? Is China returning to its rightful place as a global military superpower with a bunch of women as its leaders and dealing with North Korea with card-carrying commies?

WarpedNaba
Feb 8, 2012

Being social makes me swell!
Eh. Stopped clock and all, but it does give more oomph if it's done by a more reputable newsvendor.

Then again, god knows where you'd find one of those.

oohhboy
Jun 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
It's completely on point except with the whole communism as a form of government so not quite stopped clock. It's like saying capitalism is a form of government when it is a policy and social matter rather than how the government is structured or the source of power. China's becoming if not already a dictatorship no matter how they window dress it.

Mao was a gently caress head who ran a serfdom.

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008
strong hat game

https://twitter.com/PDChina/status/972745288757657600?s=19

Atlas Hugged
Mar 12, 2007


Put your arms around me,
fiddly digits, itchy britches
I love you all

oohhboy posted:

It's completely on point except with the whole communism as a form of government so not quite stopped clock. It's like saying capitalism is a form of government when it is a policy and social matter rather than how the government is structured or the source of power. China's becoming if not already a dictatorship no matter how they window dress it.

Mao was a gently caress head who ran a serfdom.

Eh, most people have at best a surface level understanding of communism and in attempts at implementing it, it has always been conflated with political systems. It doesn't really have a meaning that reflects a Marxian economy anymore so I can't fault the article for using the common usage.

vanity slug
Jul 20, 2010

Politics are economics this is Marxism 101

I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008

quote:

“Banyan” accused China of racism based on a misinterpretation of a sketch in a televised Chinese New Year gala (February 24th). The criticisms of China’s policies towards Africa and ethnic minorities, and the use of the labels “social Darwinism” and “neocolonialism”, are unfounded, biased and lack respect for historical facts.

China has the longest continuous history of all ancient civilisations in the world. The standard writing of Chinese characters was already in place as early as the Qin dynasty in 221BC. Those who claim that “no standard Chinese existed” in the 19th century should have at least heard of the terracotta warriors.

China is firmly opposed to racism in all forms. Chinese culture values the harmonious coexistence between different ethnic groups and cultures. The Chinese nation itself is proudly born out of thousands of years of integrating diverse ethnic groups and does not provide a breeding ground for racial discrimination or parochial nationalism. Throughout China’s history it never colonised, plundered or enslaved any vulnerable nation. In line with this peaceful tradition, China is committed to working with global partners to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

The facts speak for themselves about China’s co-operation with Africa. In developing its relations with African countries, China acts on the principles of sincerity, practical results, affinity and good faith, and values friendship, justice and shared interests. China is always doing its best to provide assistance to African countries, and has made a unique contribution to Africa’s independent and sustainable development. The enduring and vigorous friendship between China and Africa is rooted in equality, sincerity, win-win co-operation and common development.

History is a mirror that one must look into in order to take off the spectacles tinted with political bias and get the facts straight. One should respect the history of China’s development and its relations with Africa, appreciate the ethnic harmony and social stability in China and recognise that China and African countries are equal partners working for a common development.

ZENG RONG
Spokesperson of the Chinese embassy
London

https://www.economist.com/news/letters/21738339-china-ad-blockers-job-licences-scotland-meritocracy-merlot-letters-editor

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Jeoh posted:

Politics are economics this is Marxism 101

If you try to explain this in one of the numerous unironic communism apologia threads on this forum you will be treated as radioactive lol

Grand Fromage
Jan 30, 2006

L-l-look at you bar-bartender, a-a pa-pathetic creature of meat and bone, un-underestimating my l-l-liver's ability to metab-meTABolize t-toxins. How can you p-poison a perfect, immortal alcohOLIC?



loving lmao

Power Khan
Aug 20, 2011

by Fritz the Horse

I'm not sure if I admire the ability to present something like this with a straight face.

It's either straight up gangsta or completely cluessness / lack of selfawareness

Kharnifex
Sep 11, 2001

The Banter is better in AusGBS

Bajaj posted:

Does that negate myth busting going on in the article? Is China returning to its rightful place as a global military superpower with a bunch of women as its leaders and dealing with North Korea with card-carrying commies?

wait a week and they will run an article with what ive quoted you typing as truth

oohhboy
Jun 8, 2013

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Just when you think you have seen everything. Is there a bingo card?

webmeister
Jan 31, 2007

The answer is, mate, because I want to do you slowly. There has to be a bit of sport in this for all of us. In the psychological battle stakes, we are stripped down and ready to go. I want to see those ashen-faced performances; I want more of them. I want to be encouraged. I want to see you squirm.

Rong by name, Wrong by nature

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I would blow Dane Cook
Dec 26, 2008

webmeister posted:

Rong by name, Wrong by nature

If her husband wrote in in agreement we could say two Rongs don't make a right.

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