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What China Wants and Why

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Re: What China Wants and Why

#21

Post by BelenusMordred »

davidjytang wrote: post #18

> China is surrounded by foes on its coast. This is why it works so hard to expand its territorial waters. I would argue the exact opposite. China works so hard to expand its territorial waters. This is why China is surrounded by foes on its coast.

Silly to ignore the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fish and oil that everyone in the region is staking a claim to in the South China Sea.

Absolutely no one cared in the slightest about it up until vast tracts of oil were discovered and fishing rights in the region started to actually be enforced by militaries.

Re: What China Wants and Why

#22

Post by apexalpha »

davidjytang wrote: post #18

> China is surrounded by foes on its coast. This is why it works so hard to expand its territorial waters. I would argue the exact opposite. China works so hard to expand its territorial waters. This is why China is surrounded by foes on its coast.

South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philipines and other were already firmly under the American umbrella before China expanded it's territorial waters.

Re: What China Wants and Why

#23

Post by [deleted] »

Clewza313 wrote: post #8

This article talks an awful lot about this hypothetical line, but for the Chinese themselves, the key distinction is between North and South. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_and_southern_China

[deleted]

Re: What China Wants and Why

#24

Post by singularity2001 »

nichtich wrote: post #2

This is a way over simplistic view. It's not a CIV game where someone decides what "China/Han" should do for all these thousands of years. People's minds change, sometimes the people themselves change, accidents happen. You don't have to find some hidden "truth" that goes back 3000 years to explain what China today does.

Came for a similar sentiment: China is a billion people with a billion wishes. There are many clusters that conspire to achieve many different things, often opposites

Re: What China Wants and Why

#25

Post by archibaldJ »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #9

> But I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point in the future, the Han started a systematic Han-ization of Tibet. Well, practically speaking, it already started a long time ago, although the colonization wasn't as intensive (after all, not many people would find the Himalayan conditions agreeable). Also, even Tibetans themselves speak less and less Tibetan, everything is in Chinese, your school, your job, everything…

I lived in Lhasa with my ex girlfriend for a while (2016~2017). In a strange occasion via a Tibetan friend of mine I met a British photographer in his 60s/70s who was one of the few foreigners granted permanent residency in Tibet. (He showed me his residency ID and it was a yellow-ish paper issued in the 1980s.)

Anyway long story short, he jokingly told me that my friend (who's a doctor in a Tibetan hospital) is one of the few remaining good men in Lhasa as most local (middle-age) men just drink and play ཤོ (Sho, a Tibetan gambling dice game) everyday.

This reminded me of the theory that the increase in opium addiction during Qing dynasty was partly due to how deteriorating and none-spiritually-inspiring the late Chinese imperial system was. People were not motiviated in the first place so a regular activity that relieves stress became more of a coping mechanism.

Social-economically, Lhasa does become more and more like another modern Chinese city. Less and less spiritualism can be found in the local's acitivties. Everything is more and more money-oriented. (You can still see Tibetan pilgrimages near Potala Palace but these are not the local Lhasa population).

As a programmer and someone who studies Buddhism, I'm actually surprised how few Tibetan programmers there are. I have always seen coding as a form of meditation.

Since Tibet is under Chinese ruling now (whether we like it or not), I do hope there are more Chinese/Tibetan intuitives to introduce programming to meditation practitioners.

Re: What China Wants and Why

#26

Post by kwere »

georgeecollins wrote: post #10
5ersi wrote: post #6

This is apologetic nonsense. China is a nation with nuclear armament and a population 1.4 billion. Nobody can realistically attack and control them, let alone their direct neighbors. What China does is what CCP wants: to stay in power.

China is incredibly strong, but in the last century it suffered from terrible invasions. Yes, it probably can overcome any attack but it makes sense for a strategic thinker to worry that another power would try to attack it again. Think about the US.. Is the US really under threat of invasion? No. But there is a realistic historical concern about a surprise attack that animates US defense policy. Getting attacked and…

> China is incredibly strong

yeah, as Ming,Urss,Plc were strong. Lets wait the post covid era and the burst of real estate bubble

Re: What China Wants and Why

#27

Post by kwere »

babesh wrote: post #16
kasperni wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I was trying to say was that the author completely misses the point about crackdowns in Tibet and Xinjiang. This has nothing to do with external threats to the Han population. And everything to do with internal threats to the integrity of the empire instead. Runaway provinces must be kept in order. That's how it has been for centuries.

I am not expert but I read that there were Ughyur uprisings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_conflict Also, I read that the US/China competition includes a US containment strategy. https://cejiss.org/the-united-states-china-containment-strat...

> I am not expert but I read that there were Ughyur uprisings.

They must have said that pork is haram!

Re: What China Wants and Why

#29

Post by calyth2018 »

davidjytang wrote: post #18

> China is surrounded by foes on its coast. This is why it works so hard to expand its territorial waters. I would argue the exact opposite. China works so hard to expand its territorial waters. This is why China is surrounded by foes on its coast.

The policy of containment of Communism, against Soviet Union, and China, has been around a lot longer than China's territorial waters activity.

Re: What China Wants and Why

#30

Post by calyth2018 »

georgeecollins wrote: post #10
5ersi wrote: post #6

This is apologetic nonsense. China is a nation with nuclear armament and a population 1.4 billion. Nobody can realistically attack and control them, let alone their direct neighbors. What China does is what CCP wants: to stay in power.

China is incredibly strong, but in the last century it suffered from terrible invasions. Yes, it probably can overcome any attack but it makes sense for a strategic thinker to worry that another power would try to attack it again. Think about the US.. Is the US really under threat of invasion? No. But there is a realistic historical concern about a surprise attack that animates US defense policy. Getting attacked and…

The US being "invaded" is far less likely. Canada is its ally / vassal. Mexico itself isn't terribly strong.

If anyone attempts to springboard via either would serves as early warning for the US and they'd take the battle there.

There are also not a lot of coastal countries, other than Cuba, so last time someone parked some nukes there in response to the US parking nukes in Turkey, the world wondered if it's all over for 13 days.

Contrast that with China, there are more than enough American bases from SK, Japan, Philippines, Indonesia, Guam. Just from the coast alone.

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