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China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

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Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#31

Post by roenxi »

yogthos wrote: post #19
Kon5ole wrote: post #14

Mostly sympathetic statements but the problem with any statement from a nondemocratic country is that it can change after a bad lunch by the dictator in charge. The problem addressed by the statement from China is entirely caused by Russia being a dictatorship that allows a single individual to control the military might of an entire nation. Democracies have safeguards in place that complicates many radical actions,…

I'm not sure where you get this notion that China is not a democratic country. First, people who actually live in China seem to disagree with you. In fact, far more people in China think that their country is more democratic than Americans think US is. https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-... This page explains how grassroots democracy and public participation works in China. https://news.cgtn.…

The Chinese people are probably misinformed. One of the things that stands out from Western (and Indian) experiments in democracy is they are noisy, boisterous, have very loud special interest groups and are appallingly bad at keeping secrets. Leaders spend a lot of time in front of huge crowds.

There simply isn't enough political chatter coming out of China to support the idea that there is a healthy democratic process at work. Although I take no position on how stable their foreign policy may or may not be.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#32

Post by roenxi »

Kon5ole wrote: post #14

Mostly sympathetic statements but the problem with any statement from a nondemocratic country is that it can change after a bad lunch by the dictator in charge. The problem addressed by the statement from China is entirely caused by Russia being a dictatorship that allows a single individual to control the military might of an entire nation. Democracies have safeguards in place that complicates many radical actions,…

> Democracies have safeguards in place that complicates many radical actions, such as starting wars.

The US gets involved in a new war every 2-3 years [0]. In the 21st century pretty much every time they start something it has been effectively unprovoked. Democracies are notably more bloodthirsty than dictatorships; dictatorships need to preserve their troops at home to suppress dissidents but can't afford for the army generals to be too powerful which leads to a level of self-contradiction and ineffectiveness in undemocratic armies.

It is quite possible that if Russia were a democracy, the only change would be that they prosecuted the war more competently.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#33

Post by grayhatter »

yogthos wrote: post #29
jszymborski wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have never thought when I woke up this morning that someone would try to sell me "China is a democracy", but here we are I guess

Yeah, what do people who actually live in China know about their own country. Some white dude from America who couldn't find China on a map surely knows better. Peak chauvinism here my friend.

> Yeah, what do people who actually live in China know about their own country.

Is it still illegal to know things in China? I read stories all the time about government enforced censorship in China, so I think it's fair to assume that people in China know less about the country than interested parties outside the country, right?

And while I am just a white American dude, thankfully one who can find China on a map. The tone here screams needless hostility.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#34

Post by Tarsul »

yogthos wrote: post #30
Kon5ole wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China was arguably a democracy of sorts before they changed their constitution to allow unlimited terms. Before that, they had two terms. Even though the next leader had to come from the same party, having a party with several million members means they actually had some form of general representation. Having a peaceful mandatory transfer of power from any individual after a set number of years is not the only requir…

This may shock you, but plenty of western countries don't have term limits. Merkel had a longer term than Xi for example, and nobody was screaming that Germany turned into a dictatorship as I recall. Ultimately, a democracy is a government that works in the interest of the majority and that's being held accountable to the majority. Chinese system seems to do a good job of that as evidenced by the fact that quality of…

but a democracy also has saveguards that protect minorities. Does China have those? I'm thinking about e.g. Uighurs. Also, in a democracy everyone is entitled to have an opinion and say it (good that you can write freely, here!), e.g. criticizing political leaders (like Winnie the pooh) and also freedom of information, e.g. knowing about history (Tiananmen square etc.). Does China offer this?

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#35

Post by ashwagary »

Tarsul wrote: post #34
yogthos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may shock you, but plenty of western countries don't have term limits. Merkel had a longer term than Xi for example, and nobody was screaming that Germany turned into a dictatorship as I recall. Ultimately, a democracy is a government that works in the interest of the majority and that's being held accountable to the majority. Chinese system seems to do a good job of that as evidenced by the fact that quality of…

but a democracy also has saveguards that protect minorities. Does China have those? I'm thinking about e.g. Uighurs. Also, in a democracy everyone is entitled to have an opinion and say it (good that you can write freely, here!), e.g. criticizing political leaders (like Winnie the pooh) and also freedom of information, e.g. knowing about history (Tiananmen square etc.). Does China offer this?

By your standards, based on how the US treats minorities, antiestablishment groups, and whistleblowers; runs CIA blacksite prisons, gitmo, and regularly invades and overthrows and/or assassinates democratically elected leaders; it isn't a democracy either. Similar things can be said about England.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#36

Post by s1artibartfast »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #5

I like the wishful thinking, even if I think it is impossible that china believes statements such as: 2. Abandoning the Cold War mentality. The security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others. The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs. The legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries must be taken seriously and addressed properly.…

This is indeed the most interesting part.

>The security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others. The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs.

The most clear interpretation of this section is a condemnation of NATO expansion into Ukraine. NATO is the "military bloc" described here.

A military bloc is a military alliance of states. Russia invading Ukraine isn't a "strengthening or expansion" of the Russian military bloc.

NATO alliance Ukraine clearly advances the security of the EU and Ukraine itself.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#37

Post by ashwagary »

Robotbeat wrote: post #8
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #7

> China opposes unilateral sanctions unauthorized by the UN Security Council. Given that Russia has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council with veto power, this is basically making it impossible to sanction Russia.

Yeah, it’s gaslighting.

It's worse than gaslighting, it's giving Russia the same immunity in criminality that the US enjoys.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#38

Post by krapp »

ashwagary wrote: post #35
Tarsul wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but a democracy also has saveguards that protect minorities. Does China have those? I'm thinking about e.g. Uighurs. Also, in a democracy everyone is entitled to have an opinion and say it (good that you can write freely, here!), e.g. criticizing political leaders (like Winnie the pooh) and also freedom of information, e.g. knowing about history (Tiananmen square etc.). Does China offer this?

By your standards, based on how the US treats minorities, antiestablishment groups, and whistleblowers; runs CIA blacksite prisons, gitmo, and regularly invades and overthrows and/or assassinates democratically elected leaders; it isn't a democracy either. Similar things can be said about England.

It isn't. The US is a military-industrial oligarchy whose elements of democracy exist primarily as theater.

Americans believe they live in a democracy because they've been conditioned through propaganda that their guns make them free. Yet their consent for American imperialism is manufactured by lies from the media, their police steal from them and murder from them with impunity, their intelligence services spy on everything they say and do, and their government is engineered to operate completely divorced from the will of the people. They suffer a quality of life worse in many metrics than other first world countries, with fewer rights and freedoms. But it's cool as long as they can shoot a senator in the head whenever they want.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#39

Post by yogthos »

grayhatter wrote: post #33
yogthos wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, what do people who actually live in China know about their own country. Some white dude from America who couldn't find China on a map surely knows better. Peak chauvinism here my friend.

> Yeah, what do people who actually live in China know about their own country. Is it still illegal to know things in China? I read stories all the time about government enforced censorship in China, so I think it's fair to assume that people in China know less about the country than interested parties outside the country, right? And while I am just a white American dude, thankfully one who can find China on a map. T…

There is plenty of government censorship happening in US as well. Entire books have been written on this subject. I'm not aware of any country that doesn't have censorship in practice.

I think the idea that people living in a country understand their own lives worse than an outsider is beyond absurd. People can certainly understand whether they are happy with their lives and whether their quality of life is improving or not. Given that vast majority of people in China claim this is the case, I'm going to go with their lived experience over your notions about what life in China is like.

Frankly, the fact that people in US have been convinced that they know better what life in other countries is like than people living there do is a testament to the effectiveness of US propaganda.

Re: China's Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis

#40

Post by s1artibartfast »

It seems like most people in this thread missing the point of this statement.

Section 2 is a clear condemnation of NATO expansion into Ukraine.

>The security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs.

I don't think there is any other way to read this. Russia is not expanding a military Bloc. A "military bloc" is a set of countries with military alliance. This is perfectly in line with China's historic perspective on the issue.

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