The world has a lot to fear from the CCP. They have policies to encourage illicit drugs into the west. They have bought into Hollywood and are attempting to buy more companies involved in movie production. Of those companies they now own or have a percentage of, they have instilled the following rules: Every movie must have at least one chinese actor/actress There must be one scene filmed in China. The Chinese Government and Chinese culture must be shown in a good light. If the US military is part of the story line, they are to be shown in an agressive or bad light. The CCP is close to economic catastrophe. They have severely overspent and wasted huge sums of money building everywhere. There are buildings everywhere known to the locals as "rotten". These are half completed with no occupation. In fact there are whole cities like this. Many normal citizens were encouraged by the CCP to invest in these and now face economic ruin. They try to coerce western politicians into all expenses paid trips so that they will give the CCP a positive response. Just before COVID the French were accommodating and so the CCP offered the French a lot of medical supplies. Before COVID was inflicted upon the world, the CCP was buying up medical supplies everywhere. Either they knew about this months before it started or they instigated the disease. They have a practice of buying up western farming and water companies. This is particularly so in Australia. I suspect that this to either keep themselves supplied or in the case of their aggression leading to a war or cold war then they can destroy the supplies of western markets. Their tech companies are all CCP funded and they have been trying to ensure that the west is reliant on them. They therefore have easy access to spy and take information from us. Any wonder that Huawei, Zoom, Tik Tok and many others are being found out and banned in western countries. About 2 years ago the CCP hacked into some major airports in Australia disrupting the control of air traffic along the east coast. This was a test to see what they could do. Unfortunately, while the Australian Govt called the CCP out on COVID and asked for inspectors to go in, they have been hesitant to do anything else because they want the Chinese investment. Money talks.
Fun fact, in the novel of World War Z, patient zero of the zombie was a recipient of transplant organs from one of their prison organ farms of religious minorities. In the movie it was changed to North Korea organ traffickers (which do not exist btw). And they are falling down. The CCP is not going to let COVID get in the way of their five year plans. They believe it would be more efficient to tear down village hovels and move everyone in each village into a mega housing complex. Ignoring the fact that the these super housing complexes will let COVID and other diseases spread. Ignoring the fact that these construction projects are so full of graft the buildings are overpriced and rotten. They are sometimes tearing down villager's homes BEFORE the replacements are built. Oopsie. They will also see if said Westerners are susceptible to bribes and and/or honey traps then blackmail them later. I do not believe they instigated the disease, but its beyond a reasonable doubt that the CCP knew about it months before they copped to it. Essentially, Australia is the CCP's guinea pig for espionage against the West. Almost every dirty trick they inflicted on the United States and Europe was tired out in Australia first. Australia has approximately 25 million people and most of them live on the coasts. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the United States and Europe. Thus it's cheaper and easier to lean on the wheels of power. The CCP figure out what works and what doesn't before trying their "Wolf Warrior Diplomacy" elsewhere. Australia's population is finally wising up on a large scale. We'll see how this turns out. There a still a lot of Members of Parliament and local officials bought and paid for by the CCP.
To be fair, up 'til now, the chinese system is pretty much successful (granted, we must see how they will handle the possible economic crysis) and it's based on a waste of resources and fueling the construction industries that is not that much different from the one of western world, only on a greater order of magnitude. CCP and its economical politic, is a sum of the worst parts of communism, and the worst parts of capitalism. It's a terrifying hybrid, and it's even more terrifying because it's much more successful than the whole USSR approach (which was a catastrophic, unsustainable failure) If I want to be cynical (which i do), every dirty trick they use against us, it's just a taste of our own medicine. We have always followed convenience and gain, destroying slowly our own economic background. Great Malls chocked all the small shops (and so many were built tnx to privileges granted by friendly bureaucrats, because "money talks"). Then on-line stores strangled even more the market, cutting off a large part of dealers. When you are on the receiving end, it's not that great.
I have not found a single video succinct enough to post on the topic but India has reinforced their disputed border with China with soldiers who are predominantly ethnic Tibetans. That is both strategically and politically brilliant.
Recently I've been listening to a lot of China based news stories. A Taiwanese Youtube star and fitness guru known for speaking out against the CCP has been shot three times by a "crazed fan." He seems to be making a full recovery. Despite consistently speaking well of the CCP, Jackie Chan is having his mansion seized by the CCP on suspicious charges of tax evasion and it looks like this may be the beginning. Being nice to the CCP does not mean they will not screw you over. The Mongolian minority in China is pushing back against the CCP's attempt to bar the Mongolian language from schools. Putting Mongolians in the same general boat as Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Falun Gang practitioners, Uighurs, and Catholics. China's traditional allies of Russia, Vietnam, and Iran are starting to signal displeasure with the CCP. Pakistan and North Korea still seem to be as friendly as ever. Will North Korea is basically a puppet state of the CCP, so I guess it fits. Relations beween China and Australia continue to sour. Nepal's Communist party won the plurality of the seats in the last election and they are turning a blind eye to the PLA (People's Liberation Army) violating their borders. This is emboldening the Nepalese Communist opposition parties. Also Communist party in Nepal is a coalition between two separate communist parties one based on Lenin and one based on Mao. The coalition between the rival Communist factions seems to be breaking down. Nepal has to deal with both India and the CCP trying to influence them, so life is likely going to be complicated there for a long time. Relations between Taiwan and the Western world are improving. Japan seems to be pushing towards building up their military, primarily as a response to the threat of the PLA. India is proactively taking steps to protect their territory in the disputed region rather than being purely reactive. The leader of the Philippines has been softening his anti-America rhetoric because he wants to be able to count on American support if the PLA navy gets too aggressive. There are growing hints of increased factional conflict within the CCP. Xi Jinping is both tightening his control, putting pressure on rivals AND is making far fewer public appearances. The flooded regions in China haven't really gotten any better. Government assistance is slow, inadequate and poorly managed. There is question on whether the Three Gorges Dam will hold up or not. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest dam in the world, and it's in a high populated area. If it does break the loss of life would be horrific. A lot of smaller dams have been breaking or being deliberately opened leaving thousands of people homeless. Food and drinking water shortages seem to be on the horizon. Prices of pork and other staples are going up a lot. Xi Jingping himself has been talking about the patriotic goodness of rationing and not eating more than you need. Hong Kong is turning into a Orweilian nightmare. People are starting to leave. Capital is leaving even faster. Chinese millionaires and billionaires (many are members of the CCP, all are tied to the CCP) have been quietly seeking passports and overseas property to Western countries from as small as Cypress to as large as the United States and Canada. This has led to speculation that many in the know believe the CCP is on the verge of collapse so those that can are preparing golden parachutes. Hollywood companies are finally starting to see some push back against kowtowing to CCP censorship demands. It's not likely to make a huge change but until recently the dominant narrative in Hollywood was to do anything and everything to appease the CCP because of how potentially lucrative the Chinese media market is.
I could easily be getting news from an echo chamber but every Indian news source I see that talks about China seems ready if not eager for war between India and the PLA. Are they an any L-O members in India or well-versed in India culture that can set me straight? Does TFGlobal represent mainstream Indian political opinion or does it represent a fringe group of hawks? Every TFGlobal thing seems to have an undercurrent of this:
After watching Trump's recent town hall, I question why people are laying the blame for the Pandemic on the CCP (or the Chinese in general). They shared some pretty important information regarding the virus' origins and its genetic data, instituted nation-wide lockdowns, and their response to COVID vastly improved from the SARS outbreak of 2002 and is seen in the scientific community as a model in responding to a pandemic. In comparison, the U.S. has no national response to the pandemic as of now, Trump's administration's is marred in numerous cases of corruption and failures and lost opportunities, and the death toll has now passed 200,000. It just seems to me blaming the CCP is more politically convenient instead of acknowledging what could've been done to save lives.
I have enough blame in my heart for the two superpower's corrupt governments. Even if the CCP's response to Covid was perfect they are still violating the sovereign territory of India, Nepal, Japan, and the Philippines. They are still systematically harvesting organs from religious minorities. They are still engaged in genocidal policies against the Mongolians, Tibetans, Falun Gang, and Uighers (never sure how to spell that). Their environmental track record is still abysmal. Given that the CCP lies about their economic growth, their construction, their accidents, their suicide rate, their international treaties, their IP theft, their borders, their history, their treatment of minorities and pretty much everything else, I guess I'm just taking it for granted they are lying about the Covid virus. It is very obvious the CCP is under reporting their Covid related deaths or alternatively something else happened that killed a bunch of people that they swept under the rug. I don't know if more than 200,000 Chinese people died or not. If I were a betting man I would China lost more of their citizens to the virus than the United States but that doesn't exonerate our government for not acting appropriately.
Most of those things can be said of the U.S. as well, they're just not as worse. They still have the potential to be as bad if we don't acknowledge them. Trump recently announced a push for schools to teach a sort of patriotic education, one focused on celebrating nationalism instead of facts. His continual gutting of the EPA, and human rights violations in the ICE camps on the southern border. I know I'm only talking about one guy, Trump, but so far, the Republican party has pretty much been on board with him on almost everything he says or does, which is very concerning. Not to mention he has affirmed he wouldn't accept the election results if he loses his reelection bid, signifying a constitutional crisis ahead. I know this is basically 'whataboutism', but in my view, we should really concentrate on what's happening in the U.S. even if China's problems are significantly worse since we have the power as the public to prevent what's happening in our country, whereas the Chinese people have no power or say under the CCP's tyrannical rule. btw, there's this really kewl website that provides accurate satellite imagining of detention centers in the Xinjiang region, as well as cultural sites that were destroyed.
Overall the CCP has been successful as a regime. The quality of life and access to wealth and escape from poverty has been exponentially furthered under their leadership. Additionally there has been significant improvements in medical access and nutrition security. The CCP does have some glaring problems though. The lack of freedom of information and the press is a huge humanitarian short fall. Not to mention the abhorrent treatment of Uighurs, Tibetans, and Mongolians. Authoritarian Nationalism is built on controlling the narrative through propaganda and otherising and victimizing citizens who don't fit the projected national identity. I feel like the greater issues of the CCP are issues that pop up in all single party and authoritarian governments of modern history. Particularly in reference to freedom of speech and assembly.
This is a very dangerous half-truth. Before the quality of life was improved, it was destroyed first. It's like a bully nearly drowning someone in a pool and then pulling the person out of the pool and resuscitating them then saying "I saved this person, praise me!" Between mass starvation and political purges, Mao Zedong killed more people than Adolf Hitler. It's unclear whether Mao Zedong killed more people than Joseph Stalin. Essentially the horrible state mismanagement of the Great Leap Forward caused huge problems. When the Great Leap Forward was rolled back, the CCP propagandists spun the economic recovery as growth. Between the severe weather, trade sanctions, government mismanagement, a societal bias against farming as a profession, and an outbreak of swine flu that led to millions of hogs being slain as a precaution new famine is coming. The CCP is denying this, but Winnie the Pooh himself has already begun an aggressive campaign to campaign against food waste. They are already spinning it that if there is a famine it's because greedy people are eating more than they need and not that the CCP cannot produce enough food. I have an accounting and an economics degree. The CCP uses every dirty trick to twist the numbers to exaggerate their economic growth. The local CCP officials exaggerate their economic indicators up. The regional CCP officials exaggerate their economic indicators up. The national CCP officials exaggerate their economic indicators. When they aren't making things up outright. This video is five years old but the points still apply. Agreed. This is the worst thing the CCP does. Don't forget Falun Gang practioners having their organs harvested and sold. They do other bad stuff, but this is the worst. The lack of freedom of speech is deeply entrenched with the CCPs economic lies. When you don't have freedom of speech the only source of information on economic growth (and everything else) is the governments state sponsored mouth piece media sources. Unrelated thing that makes me smile. A recent CCP military propaganda video stole clips from four American action movies for the explosion and military hardware scenes. The CCP is dependent on stealing intellectual property that they cannot even make propaganda anymore without stealing something. I disagree. CCP state sources have basically said what you are saying. "Americans have no right to tell us we are being evil when they don't fix their own evilness." The CCP wants the world to focus entirely on their own borders and not pay mind to what the rest of the world is doing. Russia wants that too. Especially since the CCP is hardly sticking to their own border. They are meddling in the politics of Australia, Nepal, Taiwan, Vietnam and to an extent the United States among others. They are salami slicing territory against Mongolia, the Philippines, India, and arguably Nepal. They are aiding and abetting human trafficking around Asia to make up for their demographic lack of young women. The CCP is gradually subverting many international organizations to their whims. Here's a small example I find interesting. London recently revoked the right for Taiwanese business to sponsor a float in their annual parade. WTM. Is the CCP that threatened by one float in a huge parade. The examples of petty disenfranchisement of Taiwan are beyond counting.
I wouldn't say the CCP is largely responsible for their early troubles. Unlike most of Europe, China did not receive nearly the same amount of economic aid in rebuilding after WWII. They basically went from Japanese occupation into famine and then civil war. The unrest caused further famine due to farmers not being able to farm, because war does that. China also had legitimate over population concerns that compounded on top of their ruined infrastructure.. All this helped to exacerbate their famine and food shortage issue following WWII and the Civil War. The CCP is far from perfect. There are many things the state does which have highly negative long term impacts on their future generations, their 1 child initiative is a great example. And they are willing to accept a pariah status in international spheres if they think the political math benefits them in the end. A lot of the clout they wield in the international sphere is due to their willingness to restrict access to their consumer markets. That being said, China still had lingering issues left over from pre WWII conditions as well. The UK caused significant generational harms for over 160 years and destabilized any opposition governments. The Opium War's linger effects from the Unequal Treaties were still depleting parts of China's wealth by the Time of WWII. To the same extend that I don't support the state of Communist Russia I am not a fan of the CCP. However, much like the Bolsheviks, the Maoi'ist had legitimate cause to revolt. I was not trying to say the CCP was a good government, but a government is better than naught. And overall China has managed some impressively rapid growth and modernization. Educational standards have risen, nutritional access has drastically improved, and China's markets are largely out from under the control of foreign actors. I don't support the CCP at all. I dislike any single party government.I also would support more international pressure on China to live up to normalized relations with the rest of the world.
I feel you. I remember the giant mess that hit Russia after the wall fell, a half continent collapsed upon itself. When students were facing tanks at Tienanmen, i couldn't help but to think that someone was trying to avoid the same fate to China, albeit with the use of brute force. CCP will fall eventually, but at the times it was not doomed to end.
This is sobering. The sparrow thing might have been funny if it didn't lead to loss of human life. This is not unique to China. I am not aware of any major apology from Japan for their actions in WWII. I believe a senior political official was pressured to resign when he suggested that maybe the government should apologize for what they did in Nanking. Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide ever happened. They tend to diplomatically punish other countries that bring it up. I am reluctant to put this into writing, but I feel that owning the mistakes of one's forebears is a trait of Western civilization. Modern Germans own their past actions of the Nazis and promised not to repeat them. Modern British are aware of the crimes they committed as the world's former colonial super power. In school, I learned all about slavery, the Trail of Tears, the Japanese American internment camps and more. I'm sure there are some bad actions that could be covered more. Australians acknowledge their poor treatment of aborigines. I am hard pressed to name a nation outside of Europe, the Americas or Australia. It's not just about past crimes, the CCP is doing unspeakably awful things RIGHT NOW.
um... this is a bit false. There's been many diplomatic and other significant apologies coming from countries that aren't primarily western. Russia unveiled a monument to the hundreds of thousands killed by stalinism, and also Japan's long list of apologies and reparations. Also west african countries apologizing for their part in the Atlantic slave trade. Political apologies is pretty much a foundation of diplomatic dialogue. Every nation will use them, inevitably. A cool site focuses on this aspect of diplomacy. Generally speaking, western countries has apologized far more since they've committed most of the genocides and other significant crimes in the past due to colonialism. A pretty large portion of the U.S. still romanticizes confederate heritage (which obviously leads to racism today in the public and in government and law enforcement).
@Paradoxical Pacifism Thank you for the correction, though I consider Russia primarily Western and it was not hundreds of thousands, it was millions. My source on Japan is Americans in Japan with blogs. The government might have issued apologies but the politician who was drummed out of office in the early 2000s for bringing up Nanking was real, and they still barely bring up WWII in schools...other than the atomic bombs, that is really drilled home. I did not know about West Africa owning their part in the slave trade. Yeah this is a problem. So is the backlash. There was a spate of vandalism of Confederate monuments and a few of the statues destroyed were actually of of Union leaders. I don't know how to fix this. If you challenge a Confederate romantic they were usually dig their heels in and double down.