Successful Chinese Ballistic Missile Test

[Shroom Man 777]

The last thing we want is 1.3 billion more people producing even more pollution than they would already.
.

The last thing you want is 1.3 billion more people producing even more pollution than they would already so you in the first world can buy cheap Chinese consumer electronic appliance shit while those Chinese people live in squalor as wage slaves to the excesses of your materialism-driven "prosperous" society.

I can't believe the hypocrisy of someone from a country where people drive in shit like SUVs, where people eat shit like fastfood and meat grown from mass farms where all the millions of grown animals make greenhouse gases by farting, where your Presidents and government are superbestfriends with the oil-producing Saudi Arabian shitheads, and yet you have the GALL to talk about 1.3 billion fucking peasants producing more pollution than you.

Imagine an asshole American (or Canadian) driving from his bigass opulent suburb home, on his gas-guzzling shit-SUV, and then he drives through the highway guzzling gas. Then he stops over to a Chinese mudhut (made out of tried Chinese shit) and he tells the impoverished Chinaman to "stop polluting!".



Get real. Go stick a garden hose to your car's exhaust pipe, and stick the hose's other end into the car window. Then go take a long nap in the car and breathe deep.

So, who do you advocate, then? Russia?

Stas does not advocate anyone, not even Russia, because unlike you he realizes that immoral actions are wrong no matter who does it (America, Russia, Great Britain, China, or even Zanzibar). He does not claim that certain countries have the "right" to do things, while other countries have no "right" to do things irregardless of if these "right" things are good or bad. He does not share your double-standards and bias towards the Western nations or any nation at all.

He is not a hypocrite.

[mr friendly guy]

You're a fucking liar. I said they should not be allowed to industrialize because before they could afford to implement clean technology they'd destroy us all with the sheer volume of pollution they'd produce. The climate is fragile enough as it is with the West being the bloody idiots we are. The last thing we want is 1.3 billion more people producing even more pollution than they would already.
.

And you gross over the point that its contradictory to say its unbelievable that the CCP is helping the average Chinese citizen and bitch about it when they do? Your reason for bitching about it when they do it a irrelevant to the main argument, but I see you choose to attack that because you perceive its easier to win. AM I RITE?

Now that I have a bit more time, found the thread in question at http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 7&start=50

Darth Wong's first post on this page is pertinent as it sums up Dumbshit Boy's position. Its followed by Ryan's own response later down the page. This was one of the threads which led to him being VIed in the first place. Any one can see the argument is more than just China causing ecological disaster, but also regarding standards of living of Chinese citizens vs his standard due to consumption of resources. So not only does Ryan miss the point, but he is a dishonest turd as well. But don't worry, Ryan soon treats us to the BEST ARGUMENT EVAR. Fuck him and his Daddy's flatscreen tv. Yeah that would show us dirty liberals.

[Thanas]

Europe and America had peasants going around cutting down forests, shitting in the water supply, and not teaching their women to read until quite recently.

Germany for one was nigh 100% literate at the dawn of the century. China, not so.

You are wrong. Where do you get that from?

[K. A. Pital]

From here.

Germany had universal education since long, it should have had at least 80-90% literacy during the early 1900s by my presumption (though I think it would vary depending on age cohorts - for example, over 9 year of age or over 15 years of age - included in literacy surveys)...

If I'm wrong, do correct me.

[Ryan Thunder]

You don't even acknowledge the aforementioned American mistreatment of non-Americans, you pretend as if it is nothing, as if it's not a big deal and as if everything is fine and dandy. Your inability to acknowledge or to accept or to respond to any of these brought up points regarding America's shortcomings, beyond "oh at least its better than russchina lol" makes me think that you don't really give a damn about any of those things, and that you really don't care about people in the rest of the world but in your little favorite western countries.

I haven't acknowledged it because I don't know what to say. The implications of it all, if true, are simply too terrible to contemplate.

And yet, I can't find anything that would seem to indicate that it isn't true.

Goddamnit.

[Thanas]

From here.

Germany had universal education since long, it should have had at least 80-90% literacy during the early 1900s by my presumption (though I think it would vary depending on age cohorts - for example, over 9 year of age or over 15 years of age - included in literacy surveys)...

If I'm wrong, do correct me.

ARGH. Sorry Stas, I misread your statement as illiteracy....

Yes, the irony of that is not lost on me.

[PeZook]

Why wasn't Poland invaded even once, despite our clockwork massive social unrest every decade, dealing with dirty capitalists from FIAT, borrowing money from the West, opposing full farming collectivization and permitting private business in open defiance of Party doctrine?

This is completely absurd because unlike Hungary or Afghanistan the Soviet friendly Polish government was never in danger of being toppled by a popular uprising throughout most of the cold war. It was only in 1989 where external geopolitics (nationalist uprisings all over Eastern Europe) combined with internal reforms lead to Poland being let go.

You do perhaps remember the Polish Crisis (as it was dubbed in the West) of 1980-1981? The regime felt sufficiently threatened by internal unrest that it declared martial law. No plans were put in motion for intervention in case the regime collapsed, despite Jaruzelski making some inquiries about the possibility of receiving Soviet military support.

You then tried to draw a parallel between 1989 Poland and France leaving NATO and developing its own nukes. I argue that this comparison is flawed because unlike 1989 Eastern Europe, there were not mass uprisings in Western Europe that would make it impossible to hold on to France. Since France was surrounded by other NATO members it would not have been too hard to organize some kind of joint covert operation for either regime change or a strange "accident" happening to their nuclear weapons development.

France is not Panama or Chile: you can't organize a covert operation for regime change (and have it stay covert) or sabotage a nuclear program in a nation of 50 million people with a stable government.

Look, I am aware that the US has done some morally wrong things around the globe, I just resent the Poland/France comparison because the two are quite different. Okay?

I will concede that both situations were not exactly analogous ; I merely wanted to illustrate that both the US and the USSR were willing to accept certain important countries doing their own thing, when it wouldn't suit their current interests to intervene, while freely abusing others. I will concede that the USSR's treshold was usually lower (probably due to the fact it had a land border with states it perceived as hostile, and with Barbarossa still relatively fresh in their minds, well...they probably wanted a buffer zone pretty badly)

Oh, I don't deny that was wrong for the USA to do that. I just resent the idea that the US was solely responsible for what happened in Iran.

Well, I'm far from suggesting that, but you have to admit the US was a major arms supplier for the Shah.

[PainRack]

At the beginning of the 20th century, China had a largely peasant population. Reforms like women's education and the anti-food binding reforms were carried out largely in spite of popular opinion. Something like the one child policy would have been impossible to implement in China, especially given the strong influence of Confucianism and Daoism which strongly emphasise the importance of large families, and with large families, China would have much more difficulty breaking the cycle of poverty in the countryside. The increased population would also put an enormous pressure on the environment - especially water supplies which are already stretched, especially in the north. Korea Japan and Taiwan were able to get away from that, but they are much smaller countries, which made the job of industrialising a lot easier because it required an order or two of magnitude fewer resources, and Taiwan and Japan especially had the advantage of heavy American investment, which eased the burden significantly.

The counterweight. India.
India HAS managed to reform its caste and education bias, manage religious reform, manage population pressures and start breaking the cycle of poverty. China has done some stuff better, in particular, population pressures through authorian rule, but that is different from suggesting that such policies could never have been enacted in a democracy.

You argued that one should look at India to see how badly China would have been as a democracy. India however is also the second growing giant of the world. Her economy is moving forward, the education system is in no way inferior to the Chinese and so is the country. The population pressures are larger, but the successes India had in managing it without enforcing authorian dictates is remarkable.

[Shroom Man 777]

You don't even acknowledge the aforementioned American mistreatment of non-Americans, you pretend as if it is nothing, as if it's not a big deal and as if everything is fine and dandy. Your inability to acknowledge or to accept or to respond to any of these brought up points regarding America's shortcomings, beyond "oh at least its better than russchina lol" makes me think that you don't really give a damn about any of those things, and that you really don't care about people in the rest of the world but in your little favorite western countries.

I haven't acknowledged it because I don't know what to say. The implications of it all, if true, are simply too terrible to contemplate.

And yet, I can't find anything that would seem to indicate that it isn't true.

Goddamnit.

I'm sorry, but America and the West is NOT the beacon of light and purity that you make it out to be. Yes, it IS a better place to live in and I'd love to live there too. But it's not a perfect place and it has done, and continues to do, a fair share of very much WRONG things around the world - and, really, that does not make them any different from other nations around the world. To presume that America/the West is special or has the right to lead the world, without even listening to the valid complaints, concerns and criticisms of the rest of the world, just reeks of well-meaning arrogance (at best) and downright uncaring disregard (at worse).

That's where the rest of us in this thread are coming from. We simply don't see America/the West in the same light as you do, and we've got good reasons why we don't see it as you do.

Look, it's not that terrible. The US/West has bloody hands, yeah. But so does everyone else, except for those tiny prosperous little nations up there in the UN's list of "happy places" like Iceland or something. While the US/West's being no longer super-special and morally-correct might be "too terrible to contemplate" for you, for the rest of us it's just a fact of life and isn't really surprising at all.

It's not like the leaders of America/the West are super-moral Jesuses who are free of sin or something (although they might like to THINK they are super-moral Jesuses who are free of sin).

[Shroom Man 777]

*Though the "America might attempt to prop up dictators if they don't like our election results" mentality is quite well grounded, especially if one lives in South America. EDIT: Or the Philippines.

From a sociological and political standpoint, I've heard it argued that the Philippines are actually a chunk of South (Latin) America that inexplicably got ripped off and dropped in the West Pacific. They have a lot in common with the countries of Latin America, more than they do with most of their own immediate neighbors.

Sort of the way that Australia is like a chunk of Europe that inexplicably got dropped in the South Pacific.

Yes, our nation is very - very - very Catholic and got like three hundred years of Spaniard cultural colonialisms in our colons. A whole lot of our language and practices and culture is heavily derived from the Spaniards. But we've got a fair share of stuff that comes from the native Malay-origins, and Chinese too... I mean, we've got Chinese people being a dominant part of the upper socioeconomic classes.

We're really a bizarre mix. I don't think we'd get along too well with the L. American countries, though. I'm sure they've got their own fair share of weirdo fuck-upperies.

[K. A. Pital]

You argued that one should look at India to see how badly China would have been as a democracy. India however is also the second growing giant of the world. Her economy is moving forward, the education system is in no way inferior to the Chinese and so is the country. The population pressures are larger, but the successes India had in managing it without enforcing authorian dictates is remarkable.

Poor, in millions.

Malnutritioned, in millions.

Life expectancy, China, India

I would not dare to say India has "freed" itself from the caste system damage, that it's education is "in no way inferior" to Chinese, and "so is the country", unless I was willing to commit to saying blatant falsehoods.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

India still has plenty of problems with the caste system. Heck, they just had a bunch of lower caste Hindu extremists going around burning churches etc. just last year. The judicial system of India is also riddled with problems etc. etc. India's problems with its extremely horrendously inefficient bureaucracy makes the British one look like clockwork efficiency. Heck, I was just talking to someone from India, and he was complaining that a bunch of anti-elitists are trying to dumb down the standards at India's top universities. Things are not at all well in India, and at best, a small minority elite is powering the way, while tens of millions still sit in dire poverty.

[Shroom Man 777]

Not to mention their shit with Pakistan, and those terrorist attacks on their trains and stuff.

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

If anything, China would make a better #1 superpower for the world than the US. The Chinese may not treat their own citizens as well as they should, but at least China in its modern form hasn't gone around messing up other people's countries to the extent America has.

Honestly, the only reason I can imagine someone feeling terrified about the prospect of China ascending to the superpower niche without minding America in that same niche is some sort of hostility towards the Chinese people, or East Asians in general.

[Lusankya]

Not to mention their shit with Pakistan, and those terrorist attacks on their trains and stuff.

To be fair to India, the whole Pakistan-India thing isn't entirely their fault.

But if you look at some of the advantages India had: not being devastated by WWII; having some democratic systems already in place due to British rule; having a significant English-speaking population; and effectively being able to start their development 30-odd years earlier as they didn't have to deal with any of Mao's craziness, the fact that their quality of life is not on par with China is pretty poor on their part.

[K. A. Pital]

Before 1960, India had a better quality of life than China. In the 1960-1970s China evened out. By now, it has far surpassed India. If you look at the pathetic progress in curtailing poverty in India during 1978-2001, it's quite a deathblow to the theory that India's democratic rule was as capable to solve some problems as China's CCP rule.

Well, unless we're talking about that very uber-small part of India that is consistently ruled by more or less competent communists, which is called Kerala:

Infant mortality.

Life quality, PQLI.

That place, yeah, it's done better than China. But that place is an exception to overall India's utter nightmare of a nation. *shrugs*

[Shroom Man 777]

If China ascends to global superpower status, could we assume that it would partake in the same extensive level of global dickeries, subterfuge, and stuff that guys like the US and Russia did in the past? Is this inevitable? Or is there a possibility that China wouldn't engage in this, because it has historically not engaged on the same level of interventionism as the Americans and other powers?

Yes, China has engaged in covert dickeries in other regions. But it's nowhere comparable to the stuff the likes of America, Russia, and Great Britain have engaged in.

[mr friendly guy]

The thing is China won't ascend in a vacuum. There is already an established power, not to mention what Nial Ferguson calls "the rise of the rest". While a sole super power could potentially be dickish requiring several regional powers to try and balance out, its harder for 2 (non allied ones) to do the same, especially if the smaller countries are themselves somewhat more powerful. Now the two powers could simply say fuck it, we just won't attack each other but go through intermediaries and proxy wars for cold war Mark II, however given that China and the US have quite extensive global trade (China holding shit loads of US debt which Wen Jiaboa has publicly called on the US to honour), this makes it less likely but not impossible.

Another thing, Chinese diplomats manage to get what they want with so called soft power. While hardly ideal its clearly does damage than botched up invasions, using Iraq as a pertinent example. As long as they manage to continue to negotiate sweet deals I don't see them wasting resources in military adventurism. Its not like China has the neocon mindset where people mustn't be allowed to negotiate without preconditions and anyone who doesn't do what we want equals enemies. Of course if American neocons stay away from power thats a good thing to for the world at large.

[Shroom Man 777]

The Chinese do give me an impression of being pragmatists, and yes "soft power" is definitely more favorable than its harder equivalent. I love "soft power", how nations can get their interests without having to do overt bad things to other people. Soft power is a wonderful tool.

[ray245]

The Chinese do give me an impression of being pragmatists, and yes "soft power" is definitely more favorable than its harder equivalent. I love "soft power", how nations can get their interests without having to do overt bad things to other people. Soft power is a wonderful tool.

Seems like the Chinese understand realpolitik much better than the Americans who like to use the word on a daily basis.

[Simon_Jester]

What is "quite recently"? European nations and the USA underwent industrialization in the XIX century. China is undergoing it for the last 60 years. A 100 year gap is not a small factor for such processes.

I was thinking in terms of the 19th century, mostly, not the 20th. I'm not quite ignorant enough to think that peasants of the sort Lusankya regards as unsuitable for democracy were that common in Europe as late as 1900. They existed, but they weren't such an overwhelming demographic compared to the somewhat more educated factory workers and the middle class.

Of course, most of Europe democratized gradually, in parallel with the spread of literacy and the slow decline of rural tradition as that century went on. Which probably helps to explain a lot.

To be fair to India, the whole Pakistan-India thing isn't entirely their fault.

But if you look at some of the advantages India had: not being devastated by WWII; having some democratic systems already in place due to British rule; having a significant English-speaking population; and effectively being able to start their development 30-odd years earlier as they didn't have to deal with any of Mao's craziness, the fact that their quality of life is not on par with China is pretty poor on their part.

Though if you're right, one of those (having democratic systems in place) isn't an advantage for that sort of country, yes?

Seems like the Chinese understand realpolitik much better than the Americans who like to use the word on a daily basis.

The Chinese have experience with realpolitik: institutional memory and a tradition of it. All the Americans have is a Bismarck fetish.

[The Grim Squeaker]

If anything, China would make a better #1 superpower for the world than the US. The Chinese may not treat their own citizens as well as they should, but at least China in its modern form hasn't gone around messing up other people's countries to the extent America has.

Honestly, the only reason I can imagine someone feeling terrified about the prospect of China ascending to the superpower niche without minding America in that same niche is some sort of hostility towards the Chinese people, or East Asians in general.

China has had a relatively isolationist culture since, what, the 15th century? (After the massive exploratory fleets discovered half the globe, came back and got scuttled by the Eunuchs who enforced an isolationist culture since "Everything outside of culture is naught but ghosts and barbarians".? (I know nothing about Chinese history, so please correct me ).

On the other hand, the USA was actively isolationist up until WW1, it also was against intervening in other countries and raised barriers (the Monroe doctrine/"Western hemisphere is ours, now go away!"), a situation that only changed...after WW2 when they were pulled into intervening both militarily and economically in the aftermath due to a strong export economy and being a superpower compared to almost every other nation. (Sounds familiar?).

[ray245]

If anything, China would make a better #1 superpower for the world than the US. The Chinese may not treat their own citizens as well as they should, but at least China in its modern form hasn't gone around messing up other people's countries to the extent America has.

Honestly, the only reason I can imagine someone feeling terrified about the prospect of China ascending to the superpower niche without minding America in that same niche is some sort of hostility towards the Chinese people, or East Asians in general.

China has had a relatively isolationist culture since, what, the 15th century? (After the massive exploratory fleets discovered half the globe, came back and got scuttled by the Eunuchs who enforced an isolationist culture since "Everything outside of culture is naught but ghosts and barbarians".? (I know nothing about Chinese history, so please correct me ).

That's partially due to the Chinese fleets ended up being way too expensive to justify the cost. Then there's also the factor of the barbarian incursion in the North.

[PainRack]

China has had a relatively isolationist culture since, what, the 15th century? (After the massive exploratory fleets discovered half the globe, came back and got scuttled by the Eunuchs who enforced an isolationist culture since "Everything outside of culture is naught but ghosts and barbarians".? (I know nothing about Chinese history, so please correct me ).

I will once somebody comes up with a consistent measurement of isolationism for the Ming.

The Ming Dynasty offically curbed naval trade overseas, promoted by Japanese pirates, anti government forces and merchant smuggling. The fact that she promulugated this policy 3 times and trade with Vietnam, Malaya was still ongoing(albeit reduced significantly) after marks the failure of this policy.

As to the power of said non government warships, a Chinese pirate approached Spanish manila and attacked the settlement. She was originally mistaken to be a Dutch/British privateer due to the weight of cannon.

So, one could argue that the Dynasty policy was isolationist, but the culture wasn't.

[The Grim Squeaker]

If anything, China would make a better #1 superpower for the world than the US. The Chinese may not treat their own citizens as well as they should, but at least China in its modern form hasn't gone around messing up other people's countries to the extent America has.

Honestly, the only reason I can imagine someone feeling terrified about the prospect of China ascending to the superpower niche without minding America in that same niche is some sort of hostility towards the Chinese people, or East Asians in general.

China has had a relatively isolationist culture since, what, the 15th century? (After the massive exploratory fleets discovered half the globe, came back and got scuttled by the Eunuchs who enforced an isolationist culture since "Everything outside of culture is naught but ghosts and barbarians".? (I know nothing about Chinese history, so please correct me ).

That's partially due to the Chinese fleets ended up being way too expensive to justify the cost. Then there's also the factor of the barbarian incursion in the North.

We're talking about centuries (up until the Europeans/English smashed the Chinese and left them on the "defensive" in terms of expansion in the late 18th-19th centuries). Over that length of time, we're talking cultural values (The Barbarians weren't exactly latter day Mongols in terms of hemming them in ).