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daifo

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That's industries of the future, and it's not a single study. Just type in paper citations of most industries of the future, China is always ahead of the US, now gunning with the whole West combined. Technological Implementation, that's China lead to alongside education and science. Chinese score better from kindergarten to universities and they have higher IQ on average.

Millitary technology, China has better drones and hypersonic missiles. And those advantages that US has, like nuclear bombers, carriers and submarines, China is closing the gap.



That's true, but now with a war in the Ukraine, they probably can't help much because of Russia. Their citizens are already fed. They don't want their 10% inflation to x10. And they don't have enough millitary industrial capacity because of that. And they always have a paranoia that Russia would attack them, so they won't overextend. China must take this chance when the West is so invested in Ukraine.

You can't trust think-tank writings especially ASPI. There research is funded to make their supporters money. In those examples, it could be very well that those industry in the west wants government subsidies or tax break hence they are promoting that they are behind.
 

FriedButter

Brigadier
Registered Member
UBS to buy Credit Suisse for +$2 billion. Their current value is +$8.5 billion. So that is like a 76% loss for the retail traders who were hoping for a bailout lmao.

Edit: terms of the deal got changed again. Originally 0.25 francs then 0.50 francs and now 0.76 francs per share at +$3 billion

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Serb

Junior Member
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He does have an anti-Russia stance, but it doesn't detract from the fact that he does write a lot of good comments, whether on Russia or not (ofc his words can't be taken uncritically (nothing should), especially when it's about Russia).

As for that comment of his in regards to Russian involvement in Donbass, I can't really verify (haven't followed that closely), but likely not all that wrong, although a lot of civilians in Donbass has died due to shelling by Ukraine before 2022 (there's a number of 14k floating around), whether or not it constitutes genocide I can't judge, but it's unmistaken that actual civilians have been killed or injured.

Besides that, I think he kinda downplays the role that Neo-Nazi's play into current Ukrainian government (although their role might been smaller around 2014). And in general also how much influence the US has had in the 2014 coup (and continues to have in current day Ukrainian government).

Although rather than downplay, he might just have not expanded into that topic since it would lead to quite a lot more stuff to be written.

In Serbia we have a lot of Russo-Ukraine experts, and bunch of them say that Russian language was banned, their TV stations were banned, their politicans were beaten right during TV duels, their political parties banned and even ordinary people being harassed or beaten for their Russian identity. Then there are those Azov and other symbols and ideologies, there were stories of them being semi-legal and going around the country killing, beating, and intimidating pro-Russians. That and the pure killing of Donbas civilians. That's why I think there is the strong case for a genocide to be made.
 

Phead128

Major
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
This is why I think China needs to do this before 2035 and ideally before 2030. Otherwise, it will have its own Donbas. China can suppress separatism, but why do it when you can avoid the problem altogether?
I think China should move from middle-income to high-income status before going to any war that will disrupt it's business and economic growth. So long as Taiwan does not develop nuclear weapons, it's eventually going to be conquered/assimilated. Everything else is just distraction from Chinese people's rise to good living standard. US would love to disrupt China's rise, since navy/airforce is US advantage, and China is still a middle-income nation.

Remember, China lost Beijing capital region to foreigners (Khitan, Jurchens, Mongols) for 400 years, yet it still recovered these lands and assimilated these foreigners that are even more alien than Taiwanese today. If it takes even 2350 (400 years) to recover Taiwan, so be it...assimilating them would be easier than Khitan, Jurchens, Mongols, but China still did it.
 

Serb

Junior Member
Registered Member
You can't trust think-tank writings especially ASPI. There research is funded to make their supporters money. In those examples, it could be very well that those industry in the west wants government subsidies or tax break hence they are promoting that they are behind.

There are more sources of independente industries. In AI, for example, there are more papers, paper citations and implementation sources supporting that China is ahead.

I mean, it isn't that hard to understand. China has 1.4 billion people with 10 points higher IQs, against US 300 million, and better educational system, god knows how many more STEM graduates.
 

Overbom

Brigadier
Registered Member
Out of mature technologies, US has those wide body Boeing large planes. Regarding the rest of mature technologies, they don't have much stuff that China didn't already master. I'm not talking about market share, but Chinese ability to produce on its own or live without American counterparts.

I'm not worried about the civilian field, look how China is technologically helping Russia get through this war in Ukraine.

Millitary field, that's when the US still has technological advantage. However, I think that China will close the gap in 2027, not in numbers, but in its ability to produce that.

But, overall I'm understanding and agreeing to your logic of waiting until your are 100% sure and are able to totally dominate with an overwhelming advantage. HOWEVER, that was the case until America didn't start provoking China that much.

At this point, American provocations are actually stalling Chinese growth and reputation around the world.
In general, research takes time to translate to real world results. Sometimes 5 years, sometime 10, sometimes it could even take 15 years..

That's why he says to you that the US has deeper foundation. China at 2023 basically competes against the US based on research projects that started 5 or even 10 years ago. That's why another 10 years are needed.

All these Chinese advancements were made with a miniscule basic research budgets. It will take many many years for the recent tech shift to materialise in the real world

That's the difference between the hegemon and a rising power. The hegemon has deep deep foundations, go at a random corner of his house, dig a bit and you would find gold. Now go to the rising power's house and you will see that the foundations are just his sweat and blood, almost nothing exists yet.

The hegemon could shit and eat all day for decades, make catastrophic wars, terrible choices, and in the end it would still be the hegemon, that how deep its foundations are.

Now check the rising power, every move is difficult, everything, literally everything works against you, you make a wrong step and you will be eaten alive by the hegemon and its lackeys. You lack even in one technology, bad luck my dude, you are fucked.

That's how difficult and unprecedentedly unique China's situation is. Literally, one misstep and you are done for. That's why China needs to be extremely careful before pulling the trigger to dethrone the US
 

Serb

Junior Member
Registered Member
In general, research takes time to translate to real world results. Sometimes 5 years, sometime 10, sometimes it could even take 15 years..

That's why he says to you that the US has deeper foundation. China at 2023 basically competes against the US based on research projects that started 5 or even 10 years ago. That's why another 10 years are needed.

All these Chinese advancements were made with a miniscule basic research budgets. It will take many many years for the recent tech shift to materialise in the real world

That's the difference between the hegemon and a rising power. The hegemon has deep deep foundations, go at a random corner of his house, dig a bit and you would find gold. Now go to the rising power's house and you will see that the foundations are just his sweat and blood, almost nothing exists yet.

The hegemon could shit and eat all day for decades, make catastrophic wars, terrible choices, and in the end it would still be the hegemon, that how deep its foundations are.

Now check the rising power, every move is difficult, everything, literally everything works against you, you make a wrong step and you will be eaten alive by the hegemon and its lackeys. You lack even in one technology, bad luck my dude, you are fucked.

That's how difficult and unprecedentedly unique China's situation is. Literally, one misstep and you are done for. That's why China needs to be extremely careful before pulling the trigger to dethrone the US


Even if that is the case, until the politicians in the US agree on "ethnical principles" of something, like AI or genetic editing, and vote it out, 10 years pass by already. China leads in implementation and effectiveness.
 

Eventine

Junior Member
Registered Member
China’s longer term problem is the birth rate and resulting population pyramid. It has a better educated, larger, and probably smarter population, but if most people are over 50 it won’t matter. Young people invent, nearly all break through research is done by graduate students under the guidance of older researchers. If you don’t have enough youth then it doesn’t matter if your over all population is larger.

This is one important reason why Japan went from being a research and technology power house to what it is today. If most of your population is over 50, you aren’t leading, I’m sorry.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
Oh don't get me wrong, China's been producing some good stuff recently, its just that for things the themes are something only Chinese people can relate to, it's not exactly exportable stuff and that's what the topic of convo is. What is exportable is mostly video games, BL which the government unfortunately cracked down on. I do think Tencent's Three Body drama will get some traction once the Netflix versionc one comes out, just with how many people are going to want to compare the two.

I also want to say let's not get overboard with the obsession with popularity and actually make sure the stuff being exported is good. Like I used to be one of those overseas Asians who lapped up East Asian melodramas to satisfy my "representation" cravings, but now I look back and cringe because, let's be real, those are not by any stretch of the imagination good. That's not to say they're meritless and somewhat entertaining, but the stories are shallow with no reflection on domestic culture and the image they give of their characters is just sickeningly divorced from reality. Like seriously, a protagonist who is a single barista, but can still afford to wear Chanel to work?

Also Japan and South Korea are entertainment heavyweights, but they still reach very specific demographics, whereas American entertainment appeals to everyone. It will take time to get to that level, because you need technology in order to accomplish that. But as I've said before in many posts, Chinese are patient.
Looking to the US, they have the big advantage of cultural affinity with rich EU which is essentially a captive market, and actual occupation of many countries around the world. That is hard to overcome. But the advantage with China is cultural affinity with ASEAN, much closer than SK or JP. The Chinese themes are not only for Chinese, Southeast Asians in general get it.
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I'm a follower of Chinese internet music, and 1 things I've been amazed about is how Vietnamese translators to translate Chinese music. The second is how fast Chinese Malaysians are to adopt latest fashions, tech, trends, etc. from China. You have places in China itself that are less trendy than Malaysia.

The other part is, the entertainment industry like @Eventine said isn't the most relevant part of soft power. Soft power means the ability to compel someone to sacrifice for your cause without being paid or ordered to do so, like Houthis in Yemen or DPR/LPR in former Ukraine from 2014-2022. That requires control of one of the primitive human driving forces (religion and nationalism, which Iran/Saudi/Russia use), or control of intellectual discourse (话语权).

Some examples of China actually using soft power well:

1. Communist Party of Malaya, which was 90% Chinese Malaysian, fought a brutal guerilla war against the British Empire for decades until they abandoned Malaysia, and CPM SecGen Chin Peng himself was never caught.

2. Kokang and Wa in Myanmar, where people use Yunnan area codes, use Mandarin Chinese as the working language and openly want to join China.

3. African countries voting for China in the UN despite China being poor and only giving them minimal aid in 1971.

Deng Xiaoping, ironically, drastically cut back on Chinese soft power operations because Lee Kwan Yew told him that it was the only way to gain Singapore's support.
 

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
Armed separatism in Donbas exists only because Russia makes a deliberate effort to support it.

There was no violent separatism in Donbas until march of 2014 - for over 22 years that Republic of Ukraine was an independent state. There was no need because citizens of Ukraine and Russia enjoyed very similar legal privileges in each other's countries. When the protests began in 2014 they were peaceful in nature and were directed at the ousting of Yanukovych and the formation of a government by pro-western and nationalist politicians as well as efforts by nationalists to ban Russian language etc. in a deliberate attempt to further destabilize the country because they saw that as their only way to more power.

Ukraine despite Russian claims is not a nationalist country and largely rejects Bandera's ideology. Banderites were only relevant in lands that were under Austrian rule from 1772 to 1918 - Galicia, Volyhnia etc. In 2015 there was a local election and nationalist parties as well as the electoral list of Arsen Yatsenkuk got only a handful of seats in local councils. People elected Zelensky because he promised the return to "normal Ukraine". Both the nationalists and pro-Russians were fringe minorities rejected by the society. The reason why they are so visible is because they dedicate themselves to their political causes - similarly to how MAGA and LGBT/BLM are over-represented in the US.

Similarly pro-Russian Ukrainians or ethnic Russians in Ukraine were often against Russian takeover. They had no problem with Ukraine as a state because the history of Ukraine as a politically sovereign entity is long. Ukraine was one of the three founding member states when the USSR was created. It is one of the founding member states of the UN! USSR in the beginning was much more like EU today - a confederation of independent states - than the centralized USSR at its end. Gorbachev's pyerestroyka was attempting to revert those centralizing changes and bring USSR back to its revolutionary roots. This is where "Commonwealth of Independent States" came from.

The notion of what it means to be "Ukrainian" is the problem because "Ukrainians" were invented by Austrians (Germans) as means of controlling the local population. They couldn't refer to the historical name of "Rus" or "Ruthenia" because Russia (pronounced: rassiya) is a Muscovite word for "Rus". In effect you have the conflict between "Kievan Rus" and "Muscovy Rus" which is somewhat like the conflict between RoC and PRC where Chinese people on Taiwan got the idea that they are not Taiwanese Chinese but Taiwanese. And that has to do with religion. Ukrainian nationalists of OUN (Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists) were Catholic because they were Austrian supporters while the majority of Ukrainians are Orthodox. This is where a lot of the initial confusion came from because today most people in the west don't recognize how much of a role religion played in shaping of political identity a century ago. "Ukrainian" was Catholic while "Ruthenian" was Orthodox and because of the role of Russian Tsar as in Russian Orthodox church in the course of war it shifted toward anti-Russian for Catholics and pro-Russian for the Orthodox.

This is the confusion that underpins the conflict around identity. Today there is a state called "Ukraine" and two movements make a claim to "Ukrainian" identity. One based in that old anti-Russian identity informed by religion and conflict and one based in current Ukrainian citizenship and the legacy of Ukrainian Radiyanska Socialist Republic where "Radianska" is Ukrainian for "Soviet" from "rada" meaning "council" in Ukrainian.

So my point is that the people in Donbas went out in the streets to protests which lasted throughout March of 2014. And then FSB smuggled in armed thugs (among them Igor Girkin) who took over city councils by force and established "Donetsk People's Republic" on 7 April 2014 and "Luhansk People's Republic" on 27 April 2014. The Ukrainian government reacted by starting an anti-terrorist operation and rightly so because the DPR and LPR were terrorist entities engaging in de facto and de jure acts of terror. In the beginning people didn't think much of it because many ethnic Russians pushed for federal structure in Ukraine and thought that DPR and LPR could be a beginning of that process. (That's why Yanukovych's party is called "Party of Regions" by the way). The problem was that the army was disorganized as a result of the coup and anti-Yanukovych purges but by June they put things somewhat in order and began a coordinated operation. It also helped that Poroshenko was elected president in an election that was considered legitimate compared to what happened in February. By August Ukraine almost regained control which is when Russia intervenes directly in Ukraine and that established the territory of DPR and LPR that existed until 24 of February.


As far as Russians who were Ukrainian citizens went there would be no armed insurrection as least not until governmet in Kiyv would begin to repress them. It's not that they considered themselves Ukrainian. It's that it made no sense much as it makes no sense for Scots or Welsh or Irish to complain about living in England.

Separatism was entirely orchestrated from Moscow as means of destabilizing the country and preventing Ukraine from legalizing status-quo without Crimea to join NATO with a completely invented narrative of "genocide" to accompany it. Ukrainian nationalists would be a problem but they were removed from power in the next election along with most anti-Russian hawks. Poroshenko lost the election because he turned toward them in the end as his popularity dropped.

I understand that it's difficult to get a clear picture on Ukraine in a place like SDF but that's what happened. There was no conflict between Ukrainians and Russians. It was always a conflict between Moscow/Putin and Washington over imperial spheres of influece and energy markets with pro-Russian and pro-Western oligarchs taking sides with hopes for power. People could argue and disagree but they would not fight. They've lived side by side for decades as part of one political entity.



You mean like the terrorism and dissent that England has in Wales? Or in Scotland? The terrorism in Northern Ireland was sectarian violence between religious groups of Irish. Republic and the UK had perfectly amicable relations by then with a Common Travel Area and essentially the same rights for citizes of both countries.

Look what happened in Basque country and how the Basque - a genuine separate ethnicity and culture that has nothing in common with the rest of Spain - treated ETA. Hint: not well.

There's no reason why "Taiwanese" people have to conduct armed struggle against China unless there is external support for it like in Xinjiang.



Even if they abandoned the notion of restoring RoC KMT were still in favour of reunification that allowed them to remain nominally in control of the island - a confederation like the Union State of Belarus and Russia. KMT do not support independence because their very political identify and interests are against it. So no, Taiwan is not a "100% separatist entity". There's a reason why US and Japan put so much effort into maintaining DPP in power.

DPP is the 100% separatist entity and even then it's mostly for show because they know how unrealistic it is considering Taiwan's growing economic depedancy on China.

Japan does it only because US enables it as more convenient way of stimulating separatism that seems "genuine" for ignorant Americans and Europeans. With US out of the picture there is no 'Taiwan separatism" any more than hippies were ever a serious threat to American establishment.
What is your take on Kosovo breaking up from Serbia? It looks exactly like Donbas with large different ethnic group who was encouraged by EU and NATO to break away from a sovereign state. When Serbia exercised her sovereignty right, NATO invaded and occupied and recognised the breakaway. Principles are only principles when universally applied, otherwise they are nothing but meaningless letters on paper. I think many people here agree with me.

So, on the one hand you are right on how PRC would treat the sensation of people on Taiwan island, on the other hand you are not going to convince anybody on Donbas because people have no objections on your principle but object how you apply the principle.

Kosovo was the turning point when people stopped giving a dime to the principle on paper, thanks to US/NATO/EU. Although governments east and west still pretend to play by the book, not grass-root people here.

P.S. Putin got popular (at lease among Chinese) when he referred to Kosovo in 2008 (Georgian war), that should tell you what kind of mind and heart you are facing.
 
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