Official China Discussion Thread

Pointing to the cultural genocide of the Ughyur as to why we shouldn't work with China just doesn't work logically. Their suffering matters but abandoning all leverage and pursuing a short-sighted policy of opposition will not improve their condition.

At best nothing will change and Climate Change will gut us, at worse radical elements within the PRC will decide that as long as the West will oppose them regardless they might as well "solve" the Ughyur problem (read: commit genocide) and Climate Change will gut us. Neither is palatable to me.

What we need is a carrot and stick method, not self-fulfilling prophecies about authoritarians never doing what's right.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 9:01:53 AM

Cooperation is possible if the other party cares for it. Beijing has a say in this, too. It's been about three decades since China gained market and diplomatic access to the rest of the world, and that hasn't exactly made its ruling class more pliable on human rights, or the externalities of its overseas ambitions.

As it stands now, massive human rights abuses against minorities happen to turn up a tidy profit. So do environmentally-destructive "development" projects in China's near abroad. Beijing had not only been munching on the free market carrot for decades, it turned around and used it to pressure countries and corporations to do its biddings, too. Right now it stands to gain the same things as everyone does on climate action (sustainable ways of life and livelihoods that go beyond the current regime's ideological myopia) and lose the same things as well. If that cost-benefit calculus isn't enough to compel them to do the right thing, then maybe some people at the top need their screws tightened a little.

I see that we're still doing the bit on whose lives are worth trading, so I'll just quote this little testimony, as a sampler (audio attached):

Maybe just think about how many more of these it's going to take until the CCP calls it even and goes ahead with the climate change stuff.

Not to mention that China's idea of "combating climate change" includes simply off-loading and investing into coal use abroad.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on May 25th 2020 at 6:19:38 PM

Basically, The CCP really don't seems to bother to work with the rest of the world except in a relationship where they have the upper hand.

I agree with a stick and carrot approach, but seriously, if literally any sort of "provocation" would cause the CCP to enter a fit of apocalyptic rage...

Why the fuck we should work with them?

I am still of the mind that China does not really have a choice when it comes to fighting climate change: If they do not do it, and do it effectively, then they are as screwed as the rest of us, if not more due to the density of their population.

You seem to forgot that China or the CCP doesn't care a damn about either their people or what the world think of them: If the entire world goes to hell with them, so be it.

We funded and supported the Soviet war effort, not it's internal oppression. We can work with China on climate change without directly aiding genocide.

Okay let's be more direct then, Chinese companies that use slave labour, should they be allowed to operate in the West? Should US companies be allowed to sub-contact to companies that use slave labour?

Personally I think that such companies should be barred from operating in the west, I also think that US companies that use slave labour in the US should be barred from operating and their leadership and major shareholders should be arrested.

You're assuming that Ughyur groups will never decide that the west carries a level of responsibility for their slaughter, there's a risk that such groups decide that if we've decided their lives are expendable they will decide that ours are.

I have said absolutely nothing to the contrary.

When we allow Chinese companies that directly participate in and profit from the genocide to operate in the West (or have western companies sub-contract to them) we are directly supporting the genocide effort.

We allow western companies who directly profit from genocide to operate.

It should come as no surprise that we let Chinese companies do the same.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 9:53:52 AM

Which ones? As I said already I think that US companies that engage in slavery should be shut down and their leadership arrested, if you'd like to name for me other companies that are profiting from other genocides I'm all ears.

Another issue is that china have stop being the ruthless but pragmatic state that can led aside stuff and is engaging more and more in pointless dick mesury context and power grabing schemes, meaning that any stick we use will be interpreted as an atack to them, which is a problem.

I mean is getting harder and harder to work with donald trump because botton line what he demand are not result in the more strict sense but rather to feed is ego and is sense of braggin and belive or no, Xi is not far away for that.

Im telling you this as venezuela, is really hard to work with a dictator in part because their own sense of self importance get in the way of good work.

Are you not aware of the history of corporations funding death squads?

Or their extensive connection to slave labor?

Silasw you're a socialist, why do you think that Chinese companies are magically more exploitive then Western ones?

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 10:07:05 AM

Hence "wolf warrior diplomacy".

You said genocide, I already said what I think should happen to companies that practise slavery, the US has prominent enough examples just with things like the refugee-enslavement case that happened recently.

Also I'm talking about current events, not historical ones.

Edited by Silasw on May 25th 2020 at 5:15:49 PM

I already brought this up in the last page, but the problem is assuming that human rights and climate change are an either/or choice binary for the CCP. We can work out the right leverages (more stick than carrot right now, as far as the leadership is concerned) and push it to work on both, or we can let it do as it's wont to. And for the record, I won't advise trusting the people who literally sentenced an Uyghur environmental scientist to death to do the right thing on human rights or the climate, sans some major international pressure.

Right now, the loudest champions for human rights issues on the global stage are right-wing grifters from groups like the US GOP who only care about the victims inasmuch as they can help rally the blanket Sinophobia of their racist constituents back home. If liberals and progressives turn out to be just as willing to throw the victims under the bus for the hope - not even the promise - of nudging the CCP into some token climate action, then there truly is no hope.

My point is that all corporations do unethical things, I don't trust most current politicians to single out Chinese corporations in a way that doesn't feed xenophobia.

And Biden sure as hell isn't going to crack down on multinationals as a whole.

I literally said that your prior post was compelling, my issue is with the people who are pretty clearly arguing against cooperation like M84.

I don't mind pushing China to improve their human rights practices, but it must be part of an effort to improve cooperation. Climate Change is not something you can just shrug off.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 10:51:02 AM

Sure, but there's a difference in scale between using as labour the inhabitants of a camp that were rounded up based on their ethnicity and are forced to to do work for you by their jailers (which yes does apply to the refugee-enslavement case), and operating a factory where a number of the 'workers' are victims of human trafficking who have had their passports seized by their traffickers.

Both are so horrifically bad that the perpetrators should be locked away for the rest of their lives, but one is much more blatant and catchable.

Sure, but he'll almost certainly end the US's use of refugees as slave labour, he might even end the use of prisoners as slaves.

Edited by Silasw on May 25th 2020 at 6:00:06 PM

Yep. We've given a lot of proverbial carrots to the CCP already over the decades. So far that has done little to encourage them to not be assholes.

We can't beat Iran into submission, why does anyone believe China is any different?

Because USA's approach to Iran is the equivalent of "Not even trying".

And nobody is saying to destroy the PRC, just finds ways to ensure they have less global influence

Edited by KazuyaProta on May 25th 2020 at 1:24:58 PM

They have one of the largest populations and economies in the world, and they're still developing. The idea that you can just "ensure they have less global influence" is a fantasy.

I don't believe that they're inevitably going to have hegemony but you just have to accept that China can't be shoved back into a box.

Edit: To preempt the inevitable, no this doesn't mean you can't pressure it to improve. But it does mean that the idea you can somehow make China irrelevant isn't going to happen and any strategy based on that would be foolish at best.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 11:50:45 AM

I can’t speak for others but I certainly haven’t called for an Iran style disconnecting of economies. If nothing else any sanctions on China will need exceptions for the continuation of joint efforts to combat climate change (so even a company under a trade block could be sold solar panels).

Dealing with China is pretty much Realpolitik. There is no easy solution, unfortunately.

I didn't think you were, but my point of contention has been with those who pretty explicitly have been. Which is why I'm so leery of confrontation, because many of the ones advocating for it are not advocating for any kind of rational carrot and stick, it's punitive jingoism all the way down.

Hence why the only anti-China argument I really agreed with was Eagle's, because they made it clear that "hold China to task" was not the sole thing that mattered to them and that it was compatible with cooperation against Climate Change.

I don't oppose pushing China to improve themselves, but the moment we start talking about things that harm cooperation like "complete economic decoupling" or "reduce roll back their global influence" then that's where you've lost me. And that's sentiments I respond to the majority of the time I post.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on May 25th 2020 at 6:00:57 AM