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China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

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241–250 of 452 posts

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but sadly deeper pockets have always meant louder voice.

That does not mean we should offer megaphones to the most powerful, does it?

capitalism dictates that we should offer it to the ones with enough capital to spare, nothing we should do about it then

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#242
post #161

>Good WSJ article on Russia vs. China. In a nutshell, China miscalculated the situation. They will likely look to limit their bet (on Russia) for fear of becoming Russia 2.0 to the West. [1] The tweet is from Neil Cybart and WSJ. You may know him as one of the more accurate Apple analysts. And most people still to this day think either China miscalculated it, or China's official stance is somewhat unclear. ( Paul Gra…

Those cancerous Twitter login modals are not letting me read the whole thread but I don't agree that China has much to lose here. They get a far weaker Russia much more dependent on them now economically. Russia is rich in fossil fuels which China lacks and has some advantages in defence and space tech which China can easily get their hands on. CCP might not be that confident about taking Taiwan now but they get a ma…

Replace twitter.com with nitter.net for a more pleasant experience, i.e. https://nitter.net/neilcybart/status/1500825861242724352

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about the ads, but here are their state media reports: They peddle Russia’s claim that US has bioweapons in Ukraine: https://www.newsweek.com/china-peddles-russias-claim-that-us... And here’s CGTN’s article on “biolabs” in Ukraine, citing Russia media outlets and officials: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202203/1254330.shtml Edit: As pointed out by a commenter, the above article is from GlobalTimes, not…

The existence of biolabs is completely genuine. You can read more (from a .gov site) here [1]. They seem to have removed the fact-sheets from the site, but you can still access them on archive.org, like here [2]. The fact sheets don't have anything especially seedy on them but do confirm that the labs were funded by the US Department of Defense, and do work with pathogens. Point being you don't need the quotes. There…

Military veterans here would know that NBC (the DoD’s umbrella acronym for Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) threats and defensive postures against them are constantly ingrained into the individual soldier’s training regimen. It starts from boot camp. Every recruit becomes familiar with the lovely pepper spray gas chamber encounter. NBC is taken very seriously in the training doctrine. It probably stems from the horrible use of chlorine gas during WW1. Russia has a few NBC favorites that they’ve used—sarin gas, novichok, litvinenko tea to name a few.

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#245
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those cancerous Twitter login modals are not letting me read the whole thread but I don't agree that China has much to lose here. They get a far weaker Russia much more dependent on them now economically. Russia is rich in fossil fuels which China lacks and has some advantages in defence and space tech which China can easily get their hands on. CCP might not be that confident about taking Taiwan now but they get a ma…

Replace twitter.com with nitter.net for a more pleasant experience, i.e. https://nitter.net/neilcybart/status/1500825861242724352

Thanks, I wish we didn't need to do this and could use Reddit and Twitter like they used to exist a decade back.

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#246

I don’t know why China is so keen on helping Russia. Is this some kind of godfather deal and they want some massive ROI from Russia once things settle down a bit? Or is this some long-term strategy “against the West”?

They can play both sides without much consequence, and milk Russia for some cheap oil / deals.

For now that works for them.

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> win-win for them, no? No. Taiwan is seeing a massive increase in morale and defense interest [1]. The West has unified in a way not seen since World War II. If Xi sides with the baddies, he risks the stink rubbing off on him. [1] https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/in-taiwan-putins-war-in-ukr...

I don't think China could do anything about the attack itself (besides pushing it back into the mud...). This way the Taiwan development isn't anything they could change. It will wear off though and doesn't really change anything about the whole situation. In return they get to see what the West will do and what they'd do if China would to attack Taiwan. They get the cheap resources OP mentioned above, they get anoth…

I don’t know how many times this has to be said, but the situations with Taiwan and Ukraine are in no way similar. The US has no formal alliance, or guarantees, with Ukraine. The US not rushing to defend them is not proof they won’t defend Taiwan (for one thing Taiwan is vital to the American military as a chip manufacturer.)

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#248
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those cancerous Twitter login modals are not letting me read the whole thread but I don't agree that China has much to lose here. They get a far weaker Russia much more dependent on them now economically. Russia is rich in fossil fuels which China lacks and has some advantages in defence and space tech which China can easily get their hands on. CCP might not be that confident about taking Taiwan now but they get a ma…

Sure but a far weaker Russia is what? The worlds 20th largest economy, with a history of having a geopolitical chip on its shoulder (I think most observers would agree that the Russian people would die before becoming ‘chinas little brother’) ?

> think most observers would agree that the Russian people would die before becoming ‘chinas little brother’

That is only if they would realise it, if the Russian propoganda works at home, China might be the only true friend they have in the tough times to come.

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you call a lab which studies and looks to defend against diseases which could be weaponized?

BSL-4 CDC labs have smallpox, that doesn't make them bioweapon labs.

>that doesn't make them bioweapon labs.

Actually it does. Any lab that works on viruses of mass destruction are bioweapon labs with a trivial amount of objective shift.

Re: China's state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia's line on war

#250
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do your links [1][2] support the claim that Ukraine is developing “biomilitary activities” (as claimed in the title of the Global Times article)? They seem to point to medical research to fight against diseases, rather than “biomilitary activities”.

> They seem to point to medical research to fight against diseases, rather than “biomilitary activities”. They are dual use research. Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons. Research for rockets is the same for icbms. It's why we are so keen on preventing iran from developing their nuclear energy program. It's why we are worried about north korea's "space" program. The same…

>Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons.

This is not entirely accurate. It's possible to run nuclear reactors without the capability for nuclear weapons - which, up until the collapse of Iran's deal with Western powers, was exactly what they were (meant to be) doing. You have to deliberately enrich uranium well past the point where it's useful for reactors before you start getting into weapon-making territory.

Nobody would characterise a nuclear energy plant in a Western country as a "nuclear weapons research facility", not least because the uranium involved is nowhere near weapons-grade.

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