All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Mister Mets]

I mean it is well known that one of the main policies of the reform and opening up process was loosening China's previously strict worker protections so as to better attract foreign capital, including from Taiwanese investors. And from the Taiwanese perspective, it's no issue to mistreat workers from the mainland, or any other country, because THEY can't participate in Taiwan's glorious democratic system. And China isn't the only country to have faced the difficult choice of allowing its workers to be exploited, or being frozen out of global capital markets forever, it's just the only one that's big enough to be able to force some conditions on foreign companies in return, to which all of them have cried bloody murder.

No one is disputing that Chinese capitalists are just as brutal and profit-driven as capitalists anywhere else, this is exactly why capitalism sucks. In China, it's widely agreed that the Jiang and Hu regimes went way too far in embracing free market reforms, and one of Xi's major policy directives has been to rebuild the economy from the bottom up and emphasizing rural poverty alleviation over corporate profits, which has naturally been widely condemned in the Western press as being authoritarian and unfair to all of those poor billionaires.

That's an interesting argument about China's workers being worse off than before.

Do you have any sources on that?

[The Cool Thatguy]

Yeah but instead of focusing on any of the actual bad things that China has done, you are fixated on made up bullshit that is mostly projection from the history of Western imperialism. It's not that America being a genocidal slave empire makes it okay for China to be one too, it's that China is NOT that, and that the fact that you think it is one says a lot more about skewed your world view is than anything else.

If you want, we can talk all day about China's awful foreign policy record which largely consists of backstabbing other socialist nations, or the admittedly terrible state of worker rights since the opening up period, or the government's hamfisted attempts at ramrodding these bizarre socially conservative policies that nobody asked for, or its general silence on racial bigotry around the globe unless it happens to be against Chinese people, but I'm guessing that these either escape your concern, or wouldn't be considered problems in your eyes.

You casually discuss China annexing Taiwan, and then say 'they're not that bad on the world stage!'

...yeah, okay.

[PwrdOn]

That's an interesting argument about China's workers being worse off than before.

Do you have any sources on that?

Just google "iron rice bowl" and you'll find plenty of documentation on this. Under Mao, Chinese workers had guaranteed lifetime employment at state-owned enterprises and received generous benefits, by the standards of a poor agrarian nation at any rate. Some vestiges of these policies still remain, for example the average retirement age in China is 54. But when Deng came to power, one of this signature policies was "smashing the iron rice bowl" in order to improve worker efficiency and productivity, and while it was certainly successful at doing that and China's economy has grown as a staggering rate since that time, the fact that it was a blatant betrayal of the core tenets of socialism wasn't lost on anyone.

You casually discuss China annexing Taiwan, and then say 'they're not that bad on the world stage!'

...yeah, okay.

"China" annexed Taiwan back in the 1600s, it's just that the island's current government is currently busy trying to convince everyone that they're not Chinese. But if any of them were to take a DNA test, their results might end up like Uncle Ruckus's.

[AnakinFlair]

Just google "iron rice bowl" and you'll find plenty of documentation on this. Under Mao, Chinese workers had guaranteed lifetime employment at state-owned enterprises and received generous benefits, by the standards of a poor agrarian nation at any rate. Some vestiges of these policies still remain, for example the average retirement age in China is 54. But when Deng came to power, one of this signature policies was "smashing the iron rice bowl" in order to improve worker efficiency and productivity, and while it was certainly successful at doing that and China's economy has grown as a staggering rate since that time, the fact that it was a blatant betrayal of the core tenets of socialism wasn't lost on anyone.

Wait... are you PRAISING Mao? MAO?

Jesus f'ing Christ....

[PwrdOn]

Wait... are you PRAISING Mao? MAO?

Jesus f'ing Christ....

I was just answering a question actually, though Mao is in no way some kind of Hitler equivalent no matter what the Victims of Communism Foundation wants you to think, and it's perfectly legitimate to praise his successes while criticizing his failures. Does the fact that George Washington owned slaves and killed so many natives he was nicknamed "Town Destroyer" invalidate all of his positive accomplishments?

[The Cool Thatguy]

"China" annexed Taiwan back in the 1600s, it's just that the island's current government is currently busy trying to convince everyone that they're not Chinese. But if any of them were to take a DNA test, their results might end up like Uncle Ruckus's.

...how exactly would that work?

Because by that standard, I'd still be English

[The Cool Thatguy]

I was just answering a question actually, though Mao is in no way some kind of Hitler equivalent no matter what the Victims of Communism Foundation wants you to think, and it's perfectly legitimate to praise his successes while criticizing his failures. Does the fact that George Washington owned slaves and killed so many natives he was nicknamed "Town Destroyer" invalidate all of his positive accomplishments?

No, but his actions didn't directly lead to the deaths of tens of millions for no good reason because of a half thought out idea...

[Kirby101]

I was just answering a question actually, though Mao is in no way some kind of Hitler equivalent no matter what the Victims of Communism Foundation wants you to think, and it's perfectly legitimate to praise his successes while criticizing his failures. Does the fact that George Washington owned slaves and killed so many natives he was nicknamed "Town Destroyer" invalidate all of his positive accomplishments?

But you don't criticize his failures. You've yet to acknowledge the 10s of millions who died because of him.
I guess we should just rename the thread tribulations to the great and glorious Peoples Republic of China and let you re-educate us.
For me, I am going to absent myself until this is actually about politics again and not a just you telling us how China is the only good player on the World Stage.

[PwrdOn]

But you don't criticize his failures. You've yet to acknowledge the 10s of millions who died because of him.
I guess we should just rename the thread tribulations to the great and glorious Peoples Republic of China and let you re-educate us.
For me, I am going to absent myself until this is actually about politics again and not a just you telling us how China is the only good player on the World Stage.

I think it should kind of go without saying that causing tens of millions of people to starve was a bad thing. But the thing is, I wasn't even praising Mao in that post, ALL I was doing was pointing out that while he was in power, China had a strong social safety net for its workers, which shouldn't surprise anyone given that he was, you know, a fucking communist. And in fact, this was largely seen as a BAD policy because it hampered worker productivity which is why it was eventually gutted by Deng, but because of course in the modern progressive parlance safety nets are a good thing, just stating the simple fact that Mao's labor policies were similar to the welfare state ideal will cause Westerners to lose their **** apparently.

And silly me for thinking that international relations counted as news and politics and trying to engage people about geopolitical topics instead of just fecklessly bashing Mitch McConnell for the umpteenth time. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised, if anything I've come to realize that the real problem that most Americans have with China is just that they feel offended just being forced to think about it all the time, and just kind of wish they would go back to being poor and insignificant so that we can go back to ignoring their existence again. How else can you explain the fact that so many people consider China to be our number one enemy, but simultaneously show almost NO interest in actually learning anything about it? But unfortunately, if that's the hope I don't think you're going to get your wish anytime soon, and as the cold war continues to escalate, I expect that China will show up in the headlines more and more frequently.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The issue with hating Manchin too hard is people seem to forget where he comes from - a solid deep red state. Manchin is the best Democrats can get out of West Virginia. He is the reddest of Democrats, and comes across as the now extinct (at least on the national level) moderate Republican. But he also caucuses with the Democrats, and will be replaced by a Trumper if the Dems manage to successfully primary him with someone more to the left.

You'll have much better luck replacing Sinema, although she also seems more likely to change parties out of spite if censured or primaried.

While I have my issues with Manchin, I can appreciate the stance he took in that situation. Now, if Trump had gone to Krysten Sinema with that same offer, she would've jumped on it with both feet, damn the consequences and the likelihood of a Qpublican taking her seat. From what I've heard and read about Sinema, she's all about herself and would switch parties if it benefited her.

Manchin has never really been power obsessed. He easily before the Trumpsters destroyed the Republican party in nonsense , could have been a Presidential candidate. He has that southern guy dynamic and can lure the moderate Republicans with his stance on NRA (he supports them) and other situations he's not voted or voted on. Right now ...he's not extreme enough for them.

[Mister Mets]

Just google "iron rice bowl" and you'll find plenty of documentation on this. Under Mao, Chinese workers had guaranteed lifetime employment at state-owned enterprises and received generous benefits, by the standards of a poor agrarian nation at any rate. Some vestiges of these policies still remain, for example the average retirement age in China is 54. But when Deng came to power, one of this signature policies was "smashing the iron rice bowl" in order to improve worker efficiency and productivity, and while it was certainly successful at doing that and China's economy has grown as a staggering rate since that time, the fact that it was a blatant betrayal of the core tenets of socialism wasn't lost on anyone.

I appreciate your response.

A particular Chinese program may be politically loaded, so there is a potential problem in taking the Google results at face value.

On the basic principle of the "iron rice bowl" there are several questions. Is it worth the tradeoff of the 40,000,000+ casualties under Mao? Is a guaranteed job a good idea in the first place? The inevitable result is to ask the productive to subsidize the unproductive.

[PwrdOn]

I appreciate your response.

A particular Chinese program may be politically loaded, so there is a potential problem in taking the Google results at face value.

On the basic principle of the "iron rice bowl" there are several questions. Is it worth the tradeoff of the 40,000,000+ casualties under Mao? Is a guaranteed job a good idea in the first place? The inevitable result is to ask the productive to subsidize the unproductive.

No one seriously suggests that the iron rice bowl was somehow directly linked to the Great Leap Forward, and while Westerners fixate on the famine as if it's the only thing that happened during this time, life expectancy nearly doubled and the population increased so quickly that the one-child policy was introduced to curb its growth, so they must have been doing something right as far as making sure people had food. And I think that most of the party leadership would have agreed with you about the welfare state being a drag on productivity which is why it was mostly dismantled during the reform and opening up process, but looking back now I think that more than a few people will concede that they went too far in embracing the free market and that going forward, the government should focus on curbing the worst excesses of capitalism and ensuring that workers are looked after, particularly if they are going to keep flying that red flag.

This is particularly critical since China doesn't have a "China" where it can offshore all of its production, and therefore all of its labor violations, once it becomes wealthy enough. While some production will shift to India and various African countries, China will never make the transition to a post-industrial service economy and manufacturing will continue to play a dominant role going forward, so making sure that workers are well taken care of is a main priority.

[Kuro no Shinigami]

Social Democrats win the German Bundestag election. They have the plurality of votes but not the majority. They got only 25.7% of the Bundestag seats. CDU/CSU has 24%. So the Frau Kanzlerin Angela Merkel will step down as chancellor after 16 years in power.

Since, no party has won a majority of votes and the parliament fails to elect a new chancellor, the German President will either appoint a new chancellor or dissolve the parliament.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_G...deral_election

The Bundestag can't dismiss a chancellor without first agreeing to appoint a new chancellor. That was one of several things the Germans learned from the failure of the Weimar Constitution. Weimar Republic had a dozen chancellors in 12 years, because Reichstag was able to dismiss most of the chancellors in a short time.

[JackDaw]

Yeah but instead of focusing on any of the actual bad things that China has done, you are fixated on made up bullshit that is mostly projection from the history of Western imperialism. It's not that America being a genocidal slave empire makes it okay for China to be one too, it's that China is NOT that, and that the fact that you think it is one says a lot more about skewed your world view is than anything else.

If you want, we can talk all day about China's awful foreign policy record which largely consists of backstabbing other socialist nations, or the admittedly terrible state of worker rights since the opening up period, or the government's hamfisted attempts at ramrodding these bizarre socially conservative policies that nobody asked for, or its general silence on racial bigotry around the globe unless it happens to be against Chinese people, but I'm guessing that these either escape your concern, or wouldn't be considered problems in your eyes.

One thing that’s difficult I think is that it’s hard to place strong reliance on written resources.

These (written resources) tend to be biased…the Western ones painting a falsely negative picture, the easily accessible Chinese ones an overly sanitised one.

But apart from that obvious point…I’m surprised how many people on this thread have come to believe your stance is “China does no wrong”…that’s obviously never been your view.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Manchin has never really been power obsessed. He easily before the Trumpsters destroyed the Republican party in nonsense , could have been a Presidential candidate. He has that southern guy dynamic and can lure the moderate Republicans with his stance on NRA (he supports them) and other situations he's not voted or voted on. Right now ...he's not extreme enough for them.

"Extreme", as in, "mouth foaming crazy", the default position of Qpublican voters these days.