61–70 of 191 posts
So are they going to boycott the 2022 Beijing Olympics? Are they also going to stop exporting agricultural products to China? Talk is cheap.
Interesting that the parliament went ahead with a vote, from which the 'leadership' (cabinet) abstained; I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. >"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and almost all of his cabinet colleagues were absent for the vote. Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau was the only cabinet minister present. When it was his turn, he said he abstained "on behalf of the Government of Canada." "
Under this treaty, if the Canadian government takes actions that damage or undermine Chinese investment in Canada, then Chinese companies can sue Canada in a tribunal that is separate from both Canadian and Chinese court systems; these tribunals have broad authority to mark the findings as confidential, keeping the rulings and outcomes, including financial penalties secret. The duration of the trade agreement is 31 years.
If Trudeau and his Cabinet had endorsed this motion, it would have been a tacit attack on China, and grounds for Canada to be sued under this treaty, with virtually no defense.
Naturally, Erin O'Toole (the current leader of the opposition party in Canada) is aware of this, and the easy political points he can score by attacking Trudeau for failing to support this policy, since he had a direct hand in promoting and passing the legislation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-China_Promotion_and_Rec...
Good to see a stand being taken. Hopefully allows for more pressure put on China to be more humane. Also I think there is too much us vs China going around - another war would be terrible, and even without a war, negative consequences could arise. One world should be the dream we aspire for.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no way to avoid another Cold War. A hot war is impossible. I am glad that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I will be glad with China being contained. I will also be glad in a multi-lateral world where America does not go unchecked and can be held up by others to its ideals.
A hot war is most certainly not impossible. Just because nuclear weapons might be off the table doesn't mean conventional bombs aren't. And frankly, even nuclear weapons might not be off the table fully. Desperation leads people to do strange things. China really is a sort of "early 1900s Germany" stage, which is rather frightening.
I am not sure what term is apporopiate for the horrific treatment, but I found the Economist's point quite valid. > By the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocati…
I think there is substantial evidence that organs are being removed from Uighurs while they are alive or are being killed for organ harvest. Depending on how much business the media organization does in China, it gets reported or not. I don't think China should get a pass because they only kill of the very annoying people or those with blood type matches. https://www.ibanet.org/Article/NewDetail.aspx?ArticleUid=0D8..…
Genocide implies the intent of erasing a people from existence. Simply detaining them and subjecting them to torture -- however horrible that may be -- is insufficient to meet the definition. A better argument would be that of forced sterilization, but then you'd have to show that this is both systematic and done with the intent of erasing an ethnic group.
To be clear: we must take a stand against China's behavior, but we should also label it correctly.
Interesting that the parliament went ahead with a vote, from which the 'leadership' (cabinet) abstained; I wonder what's going on behind the scenes. >"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and almost all of his cabinet colleagues were absent for the vote. Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau was the only cabinet minister present. When it was his turn, he said he abstained "on behalf of the Government of Canada." "
Nothing interesting is going on behind the scenes. 1. The Liberals hold a minority government, and whipping the entire party rank and file into voting against the motion would not prevent it from passing. 2. The cabinet doesn't want to piss China off, and doesn't want to give their opponents ammunition (by voting against the motion), so it didn't show up to the vote. 3. This provides the cabinet with freedom of actio…
What's Biden's position on this issue?
"I point out to him no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States, and so the idea I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One China policy by making it forceful … I said, and, by the, he said, he – he gets it. Culturally there are differe…
This is a prime example of how taking specific cuts of quotes can lead to wildly misleading conclusions.
This is what he actually said:
"I point out to him no American president can be sustained as a president if he doesn’t reflect the values of the United States, and so the idea I’m not going to speak out against what he’s doing in Hong Kong, what he’s doing with the Uighurs in western mountains of China, and Taiwan, trying to end the One China policy by making it forceful … I said, and, by the, he said, he – he gets it. Culturally there are different norms that each country and their leaders are expected to follow."
And as you can see, he's saying that as POTUS, he must speak out against it because he is POTUS; that the US has different cultural norms than China and that we don't condone these things.
Good to see a stand being taken. Hopefully allows for more pressure put on China to be more humane. Also I think there is too much us vs China going around - another war would be terrible, and even without a war, negative consequences could arise. One world should be the dream we aspire for.
There is no way to avoid another Cold War. A hot war is impossible. I am glad that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. I will be glad with China being contained. I will also be glad in a multi-lateral world where America does not go unchecked and can be held up by others to its ideals.
Good to see a stand being taken. Hopefully allows for more pressure put on China to be more humane. Also I think there is too much us vs China going around - another war would be terrible, and even without a war, negative consequences could arise. One world should be the dream we aspire for.
[flagged]