Let's talk about China

[gosub]

Very long. Five second scan gives a “we’re not planning on nuking you” vibe.

Probably something in the appendix about unintended consequences. Either way last month it was EU now China saying UN borked. So about as handy as handy as the Japanese invasion of Manturia.


No matter what happens reckon it results in UK getting an occasional chair

 

[Pickman's model]

The US never went to war with the Soviet Union and aren't interested in getting properly involved in Russia/Ukraine either. What makes you think it's different with China?

You don't think Vietnam etc had something to do with Russia?

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Yes they had some hot proxy wars in the Cold War. Not sure how that answers my question though.

 

[yield]

All the Pandas in American Zoos Are Being Taken Back by China
September 27, 2023 https://archive.ph/MskY1

Now, after more than 50 years, Washington’s pandas are going away — and maybe for good.

The zoo’s three pandas are set to return to China by December with the expiration of a three-year agreement with China’s wildlife agency that month. It’s not just the US capital. The three other US zoos that have Chinese pandas — Atlanta, San Diego and Memphis — have all either turned over their pandas or will see them return to China by the end of next year.

Although both sides deny politics are at play, China has long used “Panda Diplomacy” to curry favor, reward friends and punish adversaries. And the potential loss of America’s last pandas comes at a moment when ties between the US and China have hit a historic low, with most avenues of cooperation cut off.

 

[Smangus]

Panda politics? I can't bear the thought of it. Hopefully there's a claws in the contract which will allow them to get out of it.

 

[Yossarian]

 

[teqniq]

That is just all kinds of pathetic.

 

[NoXion]

That is just all kinds of pathetic.

Authoritarian regimes are often wildly insecure about the most inconsequential things. The paranoid jumping at shadows that comes with the fear of being found out.

 

[Artaxerxes]

I’m sorry the RN is firing its servants? Is this a real headline I’m reading in 2023

 

[Rimbaud]

China’s Age of Malaise

Party officials are vanishing, young workers are “lying flat,” and entrepreneurs are fleeing the country. What does China’s inner turmoil mean for the world?

www.newyorker.com

A longish read, but well worth your time and a nice epitaph of China's golden age.

 

[Pickman's model]

I’m sorry the RN is firing its servants? Is this a real headline I’m reading in 2023

Astonished there are people described as servants on hm ships

 

[krtek a houby]

China’s Age of Malaise

Party officials are vanishing, young workers are “lying flat,” and entrepreneurs are fleeing the country. What does China’s inner turmoil mean for the world?

www.newyorker.com

A longish read, but well worth your time and a nice epitaph of China's golden age.

Another, lesser, golden age causing a bit of stink

Tsingtao beer loses its fizz in South Korea after video of worker appearing to urinate into tank

China’s Tsingtao beer reportedly experiences a consumer backlash in South Korea after video of a worker appearing to urinate into a beer tank goes viral

www.theguardian.com

 

[Pickman's model]

Another, lesser, golden age causing a bit of stink

Tsingtao beer loses its fizz in South Korea after video of worker appearing to urinate into tank

China’s Tsingtao beer reportedly experiences a consumer backlash in South Korea after video of a worker appearing to urinate into a beer tank goes viral

www.theguardian.com

Sure Spymaster's going to start a dedicated thread on taking a piss at work

 

[gosub]

I’m sorry the RN is firing its servants? Is this a real headline I’m reading in 2023

The Chinese have been cleaning British dirty shirts since when half the earth was pink and and all the seas Royal Navy Blue . That it is felt they can longer be trusted is a damning indictment. Not of the individuals themselves. Cos I do mean this respectfully. more down to an understanding of how the CCP operates and the ever changing geopolitical landscape yo which everyone has there own personal ties

 

[JimW]

The level of popular mourning for Li Keqiang is putting me in mind of similar past instances that heralded significant political moments.

 

[redsquirrel]

China’s Age of Malaise

Party officials are vanishing, young workers are “lying flat,” and entrepreneurs are fleeing the country. What does China’s inner turmoil mean for the world?

www.newyorker.com

A longish read, but well worth your time and a nice epitaph of China's golden age.

It is well written and worth reading but it is also full of the sort of liberal hypocrisy that makes me want to tear my hair out. The focus on 'business' and economics, the arse-licking of wealth creators (I'd fucking love to see some 'brain drain' of the wealthy from the UK).

Sentences like the one below show the blindness of the author - because the standard of living in the UK, US etc has really improved over the last decades

The stagnation could pass, as it did for America in the nineteen-eighties, or it could deepen, as it did for the Soviet Union during the same years.

Its not only in China that people are pessimistic

Joerg Wuttke, the president emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, who has lived there for more than thirty years, told me, “China always had comeback stories. But not now.” He recalled addressing a roomful of students at Peking University: “I said, ‘Who among you is optimistic?’ It was one-third—which means two-thirds are pessimistic at the best university in China. There’s this feeling of ‘What are we here for?’ ”

I'd get the same response if I put out the same question to my students.
The president emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China may be positive (his huge fucking salary and social capital makes a very nice living no doubt), likewise the author ("a CNN contributor and a frequent guest on “The Daily Show,” “Fresh Air,” and other programs") but how many workers are in the UK, US or EU?

 

[Rimbaud]

It is well written and worth reading but it is also full of the sort of liberal hypocrisy that makes me want to tear my hair out. The focus on 'business' and economics, the arse-licking of wealth creators (I'd fucking love to see some 'brain drain' of the wealthy from the UK).

Sentences like the one below show the blindness of the author - because the standard of living in the UK, US etc has really improved over the last decades

Its not only in China that people are pessimistic

I'd get the same response if I put out the same question to my students.
The president emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China may be positive (his huge fucking salary and social capital makes a very nice living no doubt), likewise the author ("a CNN contributor and a frequent guest on “The Daily Show,” “Fresh Air,” and other programs") but how many workers are in the UK, US or EU?

Yeah I agree with you on the first bit. But sadly it's hard to find stuff on how Xi has changed China to be far more repressive which isn't written from a liberal perspective.

The second bit is outstanding in China though because of the contrast to even 5 years ago when everyone still assumed things would continue to be on the up and up. Pessimism in the UK or the US isn't new and isn't news, a shift to a pessimistic mood in China is.

 

[Rimbaud]

It's not directly about China but I found this interview with Yannis Varoufakis interesting.

He argues that capitalism has developed into a kind of neo-feudalism of the cloud providers - basically Amazon, Google, Microsoft. Idea is basically that all kinds of work now effectively pays rent to these cloud providers, e.g. companies need stuff hosted on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud etc so you pay a kind of rent to them, and consumers do the same. Similar to a feudal peasant paying rent to the lord for using the land which he works on. I think there is a strong case to be made that this is why Europe has started to fall behind the US economically in recent years. It also gives the tools to gather data to dominate the marketplace which puts them at a massive advantage and strengthens the monopoly further.

The only competitor to US based Cloud Monopolies is China which has its own cloud services with Alibaba etc. Varoufakis reckons this is behind growing tensions between China and the US as the Chinese model is even more powerful as it has full state backing.

However where I differ from him is that he recognises how bad Cloud Capitalism or Neo-Feudalism is, and recognises that China's state-backed cloud capitalism is even more powerful, but seems to shy away from acknowledging how dangerous and threatening the system emerging in China today is.

But this is IMO the strongest case I've heard that China's rise may not be over.

 

[redsquirrel]

While workers are exploited economically it is capitalism, until workers are being exploited via extra-economic means it is not feudalism (neo- or otherwise).
I've not watched the video and the rest may make more sense but this 'Neo-Feudalism' nonsense mistakes the very basics.

 

[Rimbaud]

It is well written and worth reading but it is also full of the sort of liberal hypocrisy that makes me want to tear my hair out. The focus on 'business' and economics, the arse-licking of wealth creators (I'd fucking love to see some 'brain drain' of the wealthy from the UK).

Sentences like the one below show the blindness of the author - because the standard of living in the UK, US etc has really improved over the last decades

Its not only in China that people are pessimistic

I'd get the same response if I put out the same question to my students.
The president emeritus of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China may be positive (his huge fucking salary and social capital makes a very nice living no doubt), likewise the author ("a CNN contributor and a frequent guest on “The Daily Show,” “Fresh Air,” and other programs") but how many workers are in the UK, US or EU?

I think the article does mention "lying flat" but part of the "run" movement in China isn't just the wealthy looking to move away. It is also skilled workers (programmers etc) trying to escape the tortuous working conditions in China.

 

[Rimbaud]

While workers are exploited economically it is capitalism, until workers are being exploited via extra-economic means it is not feudalism (neo- or otherwise).
I've not watched the video and the rest may make more sense but this 'Neo-Feudalism' nonsense mistakes the very basics.

I haven't read his book, but in the interview he concedes that Neo-Feudalism may not be the ideal name and "cloud capitalism" works just as well.

The rise of Cloud Monopolies is significant. I currently work for one of the largest tech companies in the UK and a huge part of our expenditure (don't know how much exactly but probably more than labour costs) goes towards Amazon in costs of cloud infrastructure. This is quite new and worth remarking on.

 

[redsquirrel]

The newest issue of Jacobin 'The Welfare State Can Survive the Great Aging' is focusing on how changing population demographics, generation gaps, etc are affecting politics. I've not read it yet and it seems mostly focused on the US/UK/EU but there is some content on Asia, including China. Might be up your street Rimbaud

 

[Dogsauce]

I haven't read his book, but in the interview he concedes that Neo-Feudalism may not be the ideal name and "cloud capitalism" works just as well.

The rise of Cloud Monopolies is significant. I currently work for one of the largest tech companies in the UK and a huge part of our expenditure (don't know how much exactly but probably more than labour costs) goes towards Amazon in costs of cloud infrastructure. This is quite new and worth remarking on.

Moving to the rental/subscription model for software is also a similar scam. The mrs sometimes had to deal with this at work and the mealy-mouthed emails where the companies try to justify the ‘value’ in this model (or why they’re upping the fee by 40% P.A, or moving to user headcount rather than desk based charging) are hilarious in their logical gymnastics, especially when she challenges them over it.

 

[NoXion]

"You will own nothing"

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Ownership of software isn’t always great either. If it at all goes tits up and the problems exceed future income the developers can simply stop supporting it and it naturally obsoletes itself.

 

[gosub]

 

[bluescreen]

gosub
Please tell us who this is, why we should pay attention to him, and give a brief account of his argument.

 

[RedRedRose]

gosub while that channel is usually very informative, the guy did say awhile ago he has had to adopt a more clickbait title style and he was sorry about that. As a result, every video title sounds like a catastrophe is imminent, but its usually about outward cash-flows, problems in real estate and fairly minor geo-political spats.

 

[gosub]

The click bait style of headlines is a thing other youtube commentators have also explained...that guy though probably about the driest China news you can get. That this one does cover outwards cash flows the fact they are now negative is pretty news worthy. He has been ahead of the curve on China realestate buy as that's the biggest property bubble burst in history (with related knock on problems) that's worth keeping tabs on as well IMO. The minor geopolitical spats...the one in this one ...not sure how you'd hunt subs at altitude...do seem to be becoming more frequent.


Someone else can do the 'important' stuff like the Coco Lee

 

[gosub]

Newsom trashed for admitting San Francisco was cleaned up for China summit: 'Slap in the face'

Gov. Gavin Newsom caused outrage on social media when he acknowledged that San Francisco was cleaned up "because all those fancy leaders are coming to town."

www.foxnews.com