Russia-Ukraine War

I lived in China for a spell and learned a good chunk of the lingo. Trust me when I say that what little you saw was, at best, copied from a Western source, and at worst little more than an empty facade.

In the main cities, and especially the centers of those cities, you’ll encounter shining metropolis’ that look like downtown Tokyo or the like, but go anywhere beyond those areas and you’ll find yourself transported back the guts of 50 - 60 years to what China was like during the hight of the cold war.

Modern China is efficient in only two ways.

• In the absolute control of their people
• And the copying of ideas and technology from other countries.

The Chinese internet is indeed content-rich…that is until the government arbitrarily chooses to censor something. Then your choices are taken from you. Live TV, like news, simply isn’t a thing there and I sorely missed it too when I was there. They dare not broadcast anything live…everything must be reviewed first…

Everything in the country works on the principle of “Cai bu dou” which roughly translates to “Meh, i guess it’s alright”. This applies to safety standards, quality in general and even human rights.

Although today’s China has developed over the years since their 2000s boom, it is still a huge house of cards built upon Western trade. Even with their colonial adventures in Africa, China is extremely dependent on trade with the West to keep ticking over. This is why they pretend to sit on the fence with Russia. They are of course going to try to make a few quick bucks from the desperate Russians (China is ironically by far the most capitalist place I have ever been), but I don’t expect them to join Moscow in some kind of ideological conflict against the West. All they really want, is continued power, money and maybe a bit of clout to go with it. That is the China I remember, and although there were things there that I really loved…they were never lightyears ahead of the West.

That's really fascinating. I downloaded Tik-Tik a few weeks ago. I have yet to see a video on there that is in any way negative about China. Basically any China content appears to fall into one of two buckets:

1. Westerners in big Chinese cities like Shanghai marveling at how the infrastructure is "light years ahead of the West"
2. GeoPolitics types talking about how misunderstood China and its foreign policy are and how badly they were treated in the past by the British and the Japanese.

Naturally I haven't seen anything about:

• The mass incarceration of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang
• The Tiananmen square massacre
• The tens of millions of people who died as a result of Mao's disastrous Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward.
• Them creating fake islands in the south China sea so as to stick military installations on them and claim other countries territorial waters

As a result of this one-sided portrayal I'm curious to see how Gen-Z (the generation who predominantly use and get their information solely from Tik-Tok) will go on to view China in the future.

The algorithm is serving me up plenty of anti-American foreign policy content. Same for British and French colonialism.

Heard on the Radio some MEP candidates (not sure who they were) saying that they were in favour of peace. Ok, but then went on to say that the West's sanctions had no effect on Russia! They have had to have an effect probably more needed too.

Just on that second talking point you mentioned regarding Geopolitical commentary about how badly China was treated by other countries, that point actually holds quite a lot of water. The "century of humiliations" from the Opium Wars to the CCP victory in mainland China has left deep scars in China's collective psyche, and is still one of the driving forces behind China's foreign policy to this day. The aim of consecutive PRC leaders has been to prevent China from ever being at the whim of foreign powers again. I highly recommend reading Henry Kissinger's book "On China", which goes into some real depth on this topic. I get that he's a divisive character to say the least, but he was directly involved in opening China up, for better or worse, so he has quite a bit of first hand knowledge.

Now, it's been a while since I last read that book, but one of the points that Kissinger argues is that, despite all the red flags and other communist accoutrements, the PRC's foreign policy is more rooted in old imperial traditions than in the revolutionary fervor of Marx, Lenin or even Mao, and draws heavily from how Imperial China managed the numerous "barbarian" tribes and nations on their borders. This basically consisted of a dual approach of binding the tribes that were closest to China via trade, gifts and other methods and buying off the more distant ones, with a good bit of "divide and conquer" thrown in as well. All of this was based on the principle that the "Middle Kingdom", China, was at the interface of Earth and the heavens, and thus basically the only really legitimate nation on Earth, with lands being more savage the more distant they were. The aim was to ensure a series of loyal neighboring states that could be easily influenced, while keeping the more distant ones placated and the strongest ones off balance. This is an extremely simplified and high-level overview and I once again highly recommend reading On China.

Viewed through that lens, China's approach makes sense. They've recognized Russia as a potential threat that's far too close for comfort, but rather than directly confronting them, they're effectively ensnaring Russia in a network of trade treaties and partnership that are, in the long run, more beneficial to China whilst at the same time keeping them engaged in a war that weakens that potential threat. Keeping Europe and the United States off-balance is a nice side-effect.

I had just finished filling out the forms for Mick and Claire!

didn’t they almost go bust when they helped make the SEGA Dreamcast ?

Li Jianwei is a former PLA soldier and a Chinese mercenary hired by Russia. He does not give away locations, just describes effects of various weapons systems on them.

@zerosquared Apt description for Putin, a cukoo is a most natural Social Parasite

Yup - when ruZZians go home.

It will stop all right as soon as some one 'taps' putin on the shoulder. Once he is gone his replacement will be very keen to quit its invasion of Ukraine.

Pretty much this.

This ceasefire statement is potentially good news. But not for the obvious reasons of Putins statement. Not because there could be a ceasefire on current lines.

But because of why Putin is saying it. If anyone remembers when we were in the middle of US aid to Ukraine being in doubt. Putin was asked about a ceasefire and his answer was(and I'm paraphrasing here): "Why would we stop now when there's no US aid and we're winning?"

This is simply the flipside of that coin.

1. US aid has started to arrive in scale finally and Putins forces are getting their sh*t caved in. They've made almost no meaningful gains in weeks and that's not likely to improve in coming months.
2. ATACMS are seemingly in plentiful supply judging by Ukraines usage of them and so far Russias air defense appears utterly useless against them.
3. The US looks poised to throw away, in some form, the restriction on Ukraine targeting Russian soil. At which point I suspect an enormous amount of Russian logistics that are used to exert force across the border are suddenly fair game.
4. F-16s are apparently on the cusp of arriving.

This is no time to talk peace. It's time to double down. You want a ceasefire? Out of Ukraine you go. All of it. Anything short of that would be an historic and monumental WW3 inciting mistake. I just hope Western leaders don't relax or pay any heed to this. I really do.

Very good video, and at the end, famous last words (possibly literally) "we cannot win this war, the price in human lives is simply too high". I wonder how many countries it can be seein in? Would do wonders for slowing down Putin's foreign and indeed home recruitment.

Terrible that he mentions soldiers coming from Nepal, Cuba, India and himself from China. Despite facing a brutal death.

As long as the regular people of Moscow and St.Petersburg aren't impacted by this "special military operation", Putin can continue with it.