China need a new geopolitical Doctrine ?

The problem with Xi Jinping is that he's not decisive. He is a leader that hedges small bets everywhere but doesn't commit. Why else did he allow his daughter to go to Harvard, an United States government influenced institution? Because he doesn't want to commit to fighting and would rather try being friends with everyone. His careful strategy works well in stewarding the economy, but doesn't work well when faced with hostile countries with global ambitions.

The strategy China needs to adopt for it's own safety is one which focuses on tackling the major single issues with full force. This means signficantly lightening the amount of pressure given to random countries like India, and the start of a very punitive economic campaign against all of USA, roping in every person and company in China to participate in holding them down until their behavior changes.

Xi Jinping based on his previous behavior is possibly an opponent of that, but he might be converted given enough evidence. The beauty of democratic centralism is that a politician can change ideas without losing face to their rivals

Wangxi said:

My opinion may seem controversial, but I am worried that China is making enemies everywhere.

I think China must stop the claims (9 dash lines) in the South China Sea (for the moment), because it endangers the relations with the ASEAN countries

Same for the Senkaku/Diaoyutai Islands with Japan, we must stop poisoning our international relations for such things.

In the past we could do this because we were less on the radar of the USA (who was focused on russia and the middle east)
, but today we have to focus only on the USA, everything else is superficial, and we need allies, or even just some countries remain neutral (like ASEAN countries) but because of the conflict in the South China Sea, even Vietnam (communist!) has a bad image of us, Duterte wanted to expulse the American bases and get closer to China, but he made a volt face because of the conflict in the south china sea, we lose geopolitically

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I am also disappointed about the conflict with India, it opens the door to the USA to make a great anti-Chinese alliance throughout Asia (
anti-Chinese hatred in India has increased sharply).

This does not mean that we should give up our demands, but we must lower our tone, we must realize that to win the "cold war" against the USA, we need allies, nobody can win an open conflict on several fronts, and unfortunately today China has diplomatic problems on several fronts, from Japan to India, Australia, Great Britain, the USA ect ...

That's why Tsai Ing Wen has gained a lot of confidence lately, she sees anti-Chinese sentiment rising everywhere.

Time is playing in China's favor, we must be calm for the time being, we cannot win a cold war against the USA at the moment, this is stupid, especially as time is playing against the USA and playing in our favor, we need patience.

I also think as free_6ix9ine that China doesn't have a powerful soft power, China has to invest billions and billions in its soft power to target the entire world, because the united states has the power to influence the whole world through its media and it's culture (Hollywood ect)

(Sorry for my english)

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I have written a few days ago in the South China Sea thread why China's dominance of the South China Sea is a survival issue for China. So I am not going to repeat here.

As for the Diaoyutai Island, it is also of critical importance to China to break the first island chain blockade. Take a look at the map. If China is in possession of Taiwan and Daiyutai Island, she will control the entire stretch of water in between, and Chinese commercial and military ships, including ballistic missile submarines, can exit and return through the first island chain unmolested, with just the Ishigaki Group of Islands (Japan) posing a minor problem. The Bashi Channel cannot serve this purpose as Philippines controls the other side of this stretch of water.

There are reasons why China considers the South China Sea, Taiwan and Diaoyutai Island as her core interests and will not back off on them. And any hostile country to China also fully understand the importance of these.

Biscuits said:

The problem with Xi Jinping is that he's not decisive. He is a leader that hedges small bets everywhere but doesn't commit. Why else did he allow his daughter to go to Harvard, an United States government influenced institution? Because he doesn't want to commit to fighting and would rather try being friends with everyone. His careful strategy works well in stewarding the economy, but doesn't work well when faced with hostile countries with global ambitions.

The strategy China needs to adopt for it's own safety is one which focuses on tackling the major single issues with full force. This means signficantly lightening the amount of pressure given to random countries like India, and the start of a very punitive economic campaign against all of USA, roping in every person and company in China to participate in holding them down until their behavior changes.

Xi Jinping based on his previous behavior is possibly an opponent of that, but he might be converted given enough evidence. The beauty of democratic centralism is that a politician can change ideas without losing face to their rivals

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I don't think it's a matter of decisiveness. He himself studied in the US and having his daughter study there is the same thing. Know your enemy better than he knows you, and education is the best thing you can buy with your money.

Of course in international politics, it's not war. You're supposed to be as diplomatic as possible while gaining as much as possible and giving as little as possible on your interests. Basically, you should look as nice and reasonable as possible while actually putting your own country as number one. That's what China's doing. The US, on the other hand, is just decisively outwardly nasty to everyone that doesn't sing to their tune and this is turning a lot of countries off to its leadership. The global competition is a game of chess, not hack and slash; there is strategy to developing China with as little friction as possible, but never shying away from the fights that you must fight.

foxmulder said:

Everything you wrote is true. But, my point is that (1) >> (2).

And (1) does not end with just fake data. It is beyond making up results. The publication pressure is so high that people sometimes ignore the data that are inconsistent with the rest of the paper or do not bother repeating experiments with "nice" results supporting the overall theme of the paper. In order to keep the "sexy" factor with the "nice" story in the paper, people sell the small (most of the time cell specific findings) findings, which rarely has generalization potential, as landmark discoveries. The system is designed to publish in high impact journals. It is *not* designed to do real research. Negative results almost never turns into papers or at least papers in high impact journals. I don't ever remember reading negative results in the big 3.

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Negative results can still be published, just not in high impact journals. Each kind of journals serve different purposes. You read studies in high impact journals to get new ideas and new inspirations, and even more importantly gauge where the field is going. Also keep in mind that most of the revolutionary studies that win their authors Nobel Prizes have been published in high impact journals, including but not limited to the big 3. People win Nobel Prize only when their findings have been consistently validated and established in the field, and most likely have been applied to the real world and benefited real people. So tremendous benefit of reading these studies and get inspired. See how the leaders in the field think.

You read specialized journals to learn how to conduct science in the most rigorous manner. You need novel ideas and rigorous science to succeed in any field.

foxmulder said:

I saw this so many times that it convinced me that current academic world is mostly waste of research money. Very small percentage (in single digits) worth the investment and rest is basically a practice in publishing papers and not real science. Therefore, I tend to value research done by the industry and government institutes more where publication and grant pressure is much lower.

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I've been in science for 20 years (graduate school, postdoc, faculty). Unfortunately, I'm still not as wise as you. I'm in academia and am still doggedly pushing myself to publish in the big 3. I have published in Science and Cell, as well as several small Nature journals, but not in the big Nature itself. I am still hoping to get into Nature one day... and wasting more taxpayers' money while I'm at it...

Then again, when National Cancer Institute, a federal institute under NIH, invited cancer experts all over the country for a meeting a few years ago to conquer some of the deadliest cancers, almost all of us are academic researchers. The government institute seems to value us academic researchers. The industry experts at the meeting flat out said "we are here to observe the cutting edge researches done by you guys. We hope to take advantage of your findings some time down the line."

Industry does not contribute much to the cutting edge science simply because they cannot afford to do any cutting edge research. As I have discussed before, most of the cutting edge projects end up not working. No industry in the world can afford to invest in risky projects. No investors will allow it. So industrial projects are usually heavy in application. that's how they can convince their stockholders and investors that they can make their money.

I do agree that government institutes conduct good science. However, because they have less pressure, their productivity is usually low.

I also agree that the publication and grant pressure in academia is too high. That is certainly a distraction for most of us. I'm not sure where you are at in your career, but being a little more open-minded will help you. Most Nobel Laureates did their Nobel-winning work in academic institutions, don't mind reading the big 3 and eagerly publish in the big 3. They are the ones who has been recognized and proven to have made unparalleled contribution to science and mankind. Don't focus on the negatives. Focus on the positives of these high impact journals. I'm sure you will benefit from it, just like those Nobel Laureates.

manqiangrexue said:

The US, on the other hand, is just decisively outwardly nasty to everyone that doesn't sing to their tune and this is turning a lot of countries off to its leadership.

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I wonder if that's damaged US "leadership" in any fundamental way. My belief is that there's an equilibrium in international relations determined solely by the balance of power. There are, of course, deviations from that equilibrium, but there are irresistible restoring forces. Trump may have been a negative deviation (from America's perspective), but I suspect that as soon as the US military throws him out of the White House and Biden steps in, everyone will crow about a "new beginning of American leadership" and "America has healed" and all the rest of the nonsense. A more extreme version of the Obama/Bush dynamic.

Any permanent change in the US position will be solely attributable to China's rise and the balance of power shifting in its favour.

vesicles said:

Then again, when National Cancer Institute, a federal institute under NIH, invited cancer experts all over the country for a meeting a few years ago to conquer some of the deadliest cancers, almost all of us are academic researchers.

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As much as I appreciate the work you and your colleagues do from a medical and humanitarian perspective, it angers me that the US still has a functional enough government to do things like fund basic research. I don't mean this as a personal slight against you - you're one of my favourite posters here - but I hope for the day you're out of a job.

vesicles said:

Uhhh...... I feel the responsibility to disagree with you on this point. What makes you think the quality of Science and Nature has deteriorated?

... To the best of my knowledge, I cannot think of any way to objectively measure the quality of a scientific journal...

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Take the published papers and verify if their results are reproducible. This analysis has been done and the results are at a "crises" level. Here's a few sources, but you can easily find more:


EDIT: I saw you replied to another poster with a response to the reproducibility issue, but like I said earlier, this problem is very deep rooted. It's beyond just the quality of journals. Even Einstein warned about it. I can go into details of this problem, but that is a long story, outside the scope of this thread. You can PM me for the details and I'll recommend a few books.

Hadoren said:

As a new guy who's accused of being a sockpuppet, I might as well join in this conversation.

I believe in China strengthening partnerships, as well as China standing strong and holding a firm stance. China needs to work together with countries like the European Union and Japan while holding firm on its core national interests.

One of the greatest advantages China has in this new Cold War is the neutrality of Europe and Japan. During the Cold War, America and Western Europe provided a united front facing the Soviet Union. Today America alone is attacking China. Even the other Five Eyes haven't joined America's trade war.

Without Europe, America loses 50% of its strength.

Some idiots like manqiangrexue want the entire world united against China. Thank god the CCP isn't run by people like him.

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Definitely China needs to stenghten more partnerships. It just seems like it is very hard for china to do so and it seems other countries are not playing ball. Eg. There's an inter parlimentary alliance against China and EU parliment wants to sue China at the UN ICJ for HK, which is a Chinese city but no one in the EU is drafting any punishment towards the US for sanctioning the ICC or India for annexing Kashmir?

This is the biased world that China has to navigate to get more partners and alliances? That's very difficult.

It would be easy to say that if China resolved the territorial conflicts that life would be easier but as one mentioned before, giving in to others demands may allow those to make additional demands later on. And if it's not territorial disputes, there will be other criticism at China from other countries. I think China is taking a quiet but firm response. However the US and other western countries are taking advantage of that.

I do agree that for the next little while, China should not be aggressively pushing her claim in the SCS, de-escalation the India border situation as soon as possible. Stay the course on HK and be extra nice to EU and south east Asia countries right now. But that's easier said than done. Vietnam and japan always has a negative view of China. I wouldn't call them neutral. India has always seen China in negative light since China out paced them. Since there are so many variables , the only thing that can be controlled is increasing china's domestic strength for now.

Mohsin77 said:

Arrogance doesn't make one a "lion." If you think China "fully controls" everything within its borders, then the only "mouse" here is the one living in your head. No country "fully controls" everything within its borders, and I can give you specific examples of dissidence I personally witnessed, if you wish. And by the way, any kid with a grade school understanding of the internet can get around blocked content. You can't block the flow of hostile propaganda from infiltrating your borders, especially for those who actively seek it.

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Talking about control, it would have carried more weight and appeared more credible had your proud civilization stopped hacking each other to pieces in sectarian violence. It still stands: a mouse can't roar. So stop lecturing.

zgx09t said:

Talking about control, it would have carried more weight and appeared more credible had your proud civilization stopped hacking each other to pieces in sectarian violence. It still stands: a mouse can't roar. So stop lecturing.

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I agree with moshin77. It is impossible to control everything. China really needs to buildup it's media soft power. If a country had a strong media and information Network they they do not have to control everything. I don't disagree with the controls but I can see that it's a sign of weakness not strength

If your opinion is along the line of having a bunch of CNN's and Fox News and the likes equals to a strong media and information Network, then by all means you can entertain that thought, or even outright believe in it. Just take a look around to see what's the use of it in this age of social division, partisan divide and racial hatred.
Power is multi dimensional and not linear. Fake soft power based on BS can easily be shattered. Examples abound.