China Shows its Aggressive Side...with Commemorative Stamps

http://behindthewall.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/12/10136741-year-of-the-dragon-woes-for-china-us-ties

I found this article somewhat amusing...especially the parts in which they interviewed Chinese people who were upset about how these stamps were too violent and provocative.

As for the developing sequel to the Cold War, well, seems inevitable at this point. Americans simply won't allow their hegemony in the Pacific to be messed with, and the Chinese feel it is their right as a nation to have influence over their part of the world. But that's just the way I see things, what about you all? Is Cold War 2 on like Donkey Kong?

I'm wondering who would feel threatened by a simple dragon image on a stamp. That's... not exactly the most ferocious and threatening picture I have ever seen.

In any event, I doubt we'll get into another Cold War. Too much to lose on both sides, and people in the US are tired of getting in people's shit. Providing that popular opinion prevails, we probably won't expand our presence in the Far East much.

Newspeople find war extremely erotic. Most Americans don't.

It depends how honourably (or dishonourably) both sides behave in the region. And China doesn't have any automatic "right" to influence; if the countries around them prefer to remain friends with America, then China really doesn't have any right to intervene.

Geography and even power does not equal a right to influence.

However, it is entirely possible that China will one day grow powerful enough to simply force the issue, (note that this doesn't mean war; the US may simply have become too weak in comparison to resist Chinese influence) or the US may become unpopular enough to make its presence there untenable. Who knows?

edited 12th Jan '12 1:56:15 PM by GameChainsaw

You do realize that Call Of Duty is the single most popular video game this year by far? Americans LOVE war...we just want the rest of the world to think otherwise.

Hell, I'd wager if you went around any mall in America and asked "Should we nuke China?", a majority would answer yes.

And I don't blame them - that dragon is scary. It's got teeth AND facial hairs!

So far, America is "winning", in a Charlie Sheen sense.

edited 12th Jan '12 1:59:44 PM by MyGodItsFullofStars

What does that mean?

Oh no, scary-looking stamps, where did I leave my spare bomb shelter?

Oh, here it is, right under my tinfoil hat.

x3 I consider war games to be an outgrowth of a bored generation, frankly. We fetishize war because we live dull middle-class lives and have too much leisure time. Of course we crave a little action. But that's a slippery slope when you talk about entertainment.

edited 12th Jan '12 2:08:26 PM by johnnyfog

Video game sales mean very little. There aren't a whole lot of peaceful games, so a lot of people buying a war game is unsurprising.

Citing a videogame as an example of a violent nature is pretty damn stupid, Stars. Those are games, and the vast majority of people who play them can tell the difference between a game they're playing and an actual war. Harvest Moon and Ace Attorney are popular too, but you don't see the players of those games going off to become farmers and lawyers.

And, in the current social climate, people are sick and tired of getting involved in prolonged conflicts. It argues against the public's desire to get into a tussle with China. (granted, the public's wants don't always translate into what the government does, but at this point there is simply nothing to gain from engaging China.) And also I don't think China is in any shape to engage in conflict itself, either.

All the evidence you could put forward for, if not necessarily a full-blown second Cold War, then at least some kind of political, economic, and possibly military shitstorm between the US and China, and you latch on to stamps?

...

~shakes head~

Dosn't look "aggressive" to me anyway. It's just a Dragon with claws out. We've got stamps for the civil war's 150th anniversary. You don't see the south moving to secede again.

Given that the Chinese people themselves are disapproving of them over supposed jingoistic undertones.

Well, the image probably means something different to them. There's a whole cultural thing behind it, obviously, but stamps in general don't really signal to Americans that shit is about to go down. It's kind of like the Chinese are all "Oh, I apologize for this offense!" and Americans are all "Huh?" Because we don't have the cultural education to understand how this particular picture of a dragon might be offensive or aggressive. Seriously, if shit goes down, it's not because we got offended by stamps.

Now if they start bio-engineering dragons we can begin to worry.

edited 12th Jan '12 2:30:23 PM by GameChainsaw

They do in China though.

Only because Obama canceled ours. Bastard.

edited 12th Jan '12 2:36:11 PM by Joesolo

No, Americans love to fantasize about war. When it comes time to actually ante up, 2/3rds of Americans don't have the stomach for the hard decisions or actions. The nation will play the shit out of Call of Duty and teabag people they've just blown away, but a Marine pisses on a corpse and oh boy, we're monsters. The most ignorant warmongers in the United States who talk about having pissing matches with China are the people who would never join the military and risk their own lives, instead they would let others do it for them, like pawns in a chessmatch. Then when people they know start to die, it suddenly becomes real and they don't want to play anymore.

That being said, it's just a stamp of a chinese national symbol. It's no different than if we had a stamp that had a pissed off bald eagle with its talons out on it, which I'm sure we've done at least 5 times by now.

edited 12th Jan '12 2:40:28 PM by Barkey

I know plenty of people who're like this who want to join the military when they're young and reckless. People who've already been on the battlefield and realize the very real risk of getting killed or maimed are probably less inclined.

It does strike me that a Chinese troper (are there Chinese tropers?) reading a lot of the threads here would think the US was incredibly insecure. "Oh no, they have a single carrier! They're coming for us! We must reinforce the lines!"

An attitude typically preceded by unabating assertions of American supremacy, of course.

Even though most of us were wholly unimpressed by that junker of a warship.

I maintain that military conflict with China is an absurd unlikelihood and most of the money we'll inevitably spend preparing for such foolishness as long as the neoconservative fuckwits control the US Government will be wholly wasted.

If there is any conflict with China, it will be political and economic, driven by ideology. Not like the pseudo-military conflicts driven by ideology we had with the Soviets.

No, we'll fondle India and other Asian nations, while trying to out-wit the Chinese, all while ensuring that our Wal-Marts stay stocked with low-priced stuff from all over the Pacific Rim in working conditions that we would be outraged over, if they were made here on our soil.

I've been reading this site, and I'm pretty dissapointed at my country right now.

Yeah, it's pretty weird. I think it's especially puzzling/telling that the people reporting the "outrage" over the stamp are People's Daily, a propaganda vehicle for the Chinese government. It's like they're trying to start a controversy over nothing in particular.

A very reliable news source, indeed!

edited 12th Jan '12 3:43:20 PM by silver2195

My guess is that because the Chinese censor any sort of violence or horror on television, that dragon actually IS incredibly frightening to the Chinese people. And if that's true, America's already won this Cold War, /flex.