Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

I was promised a recession.


 riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Let there be snark.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / BTW There is the BEGINNING OF A Holocaust Going on in China AND NO ONE FUCKING CARES

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80Comments

  2. 2.

    zzyzx

    I’ve been tormented by this for over a year now. It’s obviously horrible and I know of no way of making it stop with the amount of power China has (and yes that article does have some ideas at least)…

    One reason I was trivializing Corona a bit at first was because China shutting down a city seemed less out of character based on what they’re doing with the Uyghurs. I just thought it could be more muscle flexing.

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    Please, no interfering with Chinese “internal affairs” and besides, those concentration camps and reeducation centers on the satellite images and smuggled video are “FAKE NEWS” and Xi has learned well observing our Donny. Also, too, Hong Kong is completely fucked.

  4. 4.

    Tractarian

    Change this title, Cole. There is not, in fact, a “holocaust” going on in China right now.

    Uyghurs are being rounded up and put into concentration camps. This is a blatant and inexcusable violation of human rights. But right now, there is no evidence of mass murder.

    If you want a WWII analogy, what China’s doing in Xinjiang is closer to what FDR did to Japanese-Americans than to what Hitler did to Jews. At least according to currently available information.

    The article you cite makes it clear that the Holocaust is not an analogy (“I don’t argue that China’s policy in Xinjiang is comparable to the systematic extirpation of half of European Jewry”). You do not.

    You’re defining “holocaust” down. Don’t do that.

  5. 5.

    lofgren

    We care. We care about a lot of things going on in the world that we haven’t been able to attend to for the last twenty years because Republicans keep setting the country on fire. You really think this administration getting involved in that would help anything? Of course not. We’re down to 3/8s of what we were living on last year in this household, so what are we supposed to do about it? We’ve got lynchings on TV and a plague eating our children. We can’t help anybody else in this nosediving airplane of a planet until we get our own oxygen masks adjusted.

  10. 10.

    CaseyL

    One of the “benefits” for a totalitarian regime of hollowing out a population in all the ways the GOP has hollowed out the US over the last 40 years is that people who are pushed up against the edge themselves have little to no energy to stand up for anyone else.

    Maybe there will come a time when we can pay attention to, and do something about, human rights abuses in other parts of the world,

    But right now we have widespread, ongoing, escalating, horrible human rights abuses right here at home to fight.

  11. 11.

    rikyrah

    I care. Been reading about this for awhile.

    We have morally depraved people at the head of our government. Which is why they say nothing.

  12. 12.

    Yutsano

    @Tractarian: You’re still inaccurate here. The camps are not simply to round up and contain the Uighurs. The camps are also re-education camps. Uighurs are being systematically purged of their culture in an even more brutal fashion than what’s happening in Tibet. All in the name of “combating terrorism”. There needs to be more direct intervention like expelling the ambassador and making Magnitsky rules apply to the entire Chinese Communist Party. Not a single CCP member gets into the US no matter their affiliation. And pull as many factories and investment out of China as possible including fines for those who do. Looking at you Facebook and Google.

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Yes, let’s keep a toddler in charge of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet. Fucking brilliant, Xi

  14. 14.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @trollhattan:

    Please, no interfering with Chinese “internal affairs”

    A matter of internal security, the age old cry of the oppressor

  15. 15.

    John Revolta

    Chinese have been stamping out Tibetan culture and religion for years and relocating people there to gradually eradicate Tibet as a separate place and people. The West has pretty much forgotten about this. They’re moving faster with the Uyghurs, probably because the perceived threat is greater (scary Mooslims!!!11!!) but the intentions are the same- cultural genocide.

  17. 17.

    Yutsano

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s one of China’s favourite sayings. Hong Kong is internal affairs and the rest of the world should butt out. Tibet is internal affairs and the rest of the world should butt out. Yes we don’t respect human rights and we believe that only Han Chinese should live in all our territory but that is nothing you should be concerned with so please to stay out of Chinese affairs. Oh and keep buying our cheap junk.

  19. 19.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Yutsano:

    Silly Yutsano! America is the only evil country in the world! It’s not like power itself is corrupting or anything! Or that literally every great power in history has done the same shit or worse.

    No, I’m absolutely certain the PRC won’t turn to military adventurism in the near future. My leftier-than-thou betters tell me so (not directed at you, Tractarian)

    /s

    You’re absolutely right. The US never tried to systemically destroy Japanese-American culture during internment. A more accurate comparison might be the schools we tried to use to assimilate Native Americans, but even that falls short

  20. 20.

    trollhattan

    @Yutsano:

    They’re rubbing out the culture via reeducation and at the same time, populating their traditional region with Han Chinese in order to displace them. At least that’s my understanding.

  22. 22.

    Martin

    Of course people care, but we also have an out-of-control pandemic in the US and our own borderline lawless administration. There’s fuck-all we can do about China right now, especially as we are almost wholly dependent on them for protection against the pandemic.

  25. 25.

    Yutsano

    @trollhattan: The ROC has three advantages: they are armed to the teeth with more sophisticated weapons than the PRC has,  their army is much better trained in tactics and strategy, and there is an automatic standing order that if Taiwan is ever attacked the United States military will automatically go to defend Taiwan. Herr Drumpf wouldn’t even have to say anything, the military would be on it. And if you don’t think we could get forces there fast, Okinawa isn’t that far away and those Marines stay ready for this. There are reasons the PRC only potshots at the ROC. It’s nice to have alliances.

    Oh and there would be nothing keeping India from invading from the south to settle some border disputes and maybe even liberate Tibet. Just sayin’.

  26. 26.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Yutsano:

    I don’t think China is going to be content to just stick to Asia or their  “Belt and Road” initiatives.

    They will eventually want to flex their military muscle like every other great power in history has.

    Hell, they’re already trying to remake the West in their own image by subverting our values through organizations like the NBA. I still remember the Houston Astros and the NBA acting like fucking cowards to appease the CCP once money was invoked. All because the team manager (?) criticized China’s human rights record.

    All of these authoritarians have very thin skins

  27. 27.

    The Moar You Know

    The difference between now and WWII is that we’re now a pariah state, right down there with Iran and North Korea (save that some folks feel sorry for the people of those countries and nobody feels sorry for Americans) and we’re completely unable at the moment, thanks to the Trump plague, to do anything.

    So yeah, I have known about this for years, and it’s horrific, but someone else is going to have to step up to the plate as America is no longer capable of that.  And may not be for a long time to come.

  29. 29.

    No One of Consequence

    RECOGNIZE TAIWAN.

    Officially, completely, and whole-heartedly.

    Hong Kong deserves our assistance, such as we can provide.

    Taiwan has earned our friendship and support. Their mistreatment at the demanding of China across soooooooooo many avenues of Global Citizenship, must end.

    We could be the ones to do this. Let China know, you will never take Taiwan, so long as America remains to defend it. Correct your course now, and further action against other Chinese interests may be avoided.

    But you will *never* have Taiwan. Let this be a lesson, and learn it well. Further education will be far more painful.

    This, of course, assumes this nation remains Honorable, and that we have a leader with the Courage to live up to the Nation’s Convictions and Ideals.

    Infuriated, but still want

    Peace,

    – NOoC

  30. 30.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @The Moar You Know:

    The difference between now and WWII is that we’re now a pariah state, right down there with Iran and North Korean

    I mean, we were attacked in 2016 by a hostile power. Our elections were subverted. And this same hostile power, Russia, has been meddling in the affairs of plenty of other nations.

    If the US is a pariah state, then so is Brazil, the UK, Australia, and other places that have gone off the rails the past few years. This is a worldwide phenomenon

  31. 31.

    Yutsano

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The Japanese have long believed they were the superior race in the world based upon their belief that all true Japanese are divinely descended*. To say they were brutal to the Koreans is an understatement.

    *the actual story is much more complicated than that but I’m massively oversimplifying for brevity.

  32. 32.

    oldster

    Trump has green-lighted all of this.

    Even apart from Ivanka’s commercial ties in China, Trump has asked China for help with the election.

    And all that they ask in return is that he do nothing.

    Remember: Trump is on record expressing his admiration for the massacre at Tiananmen Square. He approves of the genocide of the Uighurs, too.

     

    (And incidentally, “genocide” may be more relevant than “holocaust”, since the proximal aim is to destroy a culture and an ethnicity. I don’t know whether Xi also wants to kill all of the individuals. Maybe that too?)

  33. 33.

    Brachiator

    @Tractarian:

    If you want a WWII analogy

    Please stop with the analogy bullshit. It doesn’t add anything. Nor does it really matter.

    China. Tibet. Tiananmen Square. Hong Kong. Uyghurs. There is a long, continuous history of oppression in modern times.

  34. 34.

    evodevo

    @trollhattan: Yep.  A good look at the methods they use to gradually move indigenous peoples into more tractable habitats, and undermine their traditional ways of living is discussed in the mystery series by Eliot Pattison, in which the protagonist is a Han Chinese police detective exiled to Tibet for unnamed political “crimes” and imprisoned there along with Buddhist monks.  In the second book, Water Touching Stone, Pattison’s character interacts with tribes neighboring Tibet, including Kazakhs and Uighurs, detailing the insidious ongoing penetration of Chinese authority into the daily lives of these peoples, and the attempts to “tame” them that are reminiscent of the confinement of Native Americans to reservations.  Very enlightening series…

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @oldster:

    Trump has green-lighted all of this.

    You can’t just lay this on Trump. No one came to the aid of minorities in Sri Lanka.

    I suppose that we liberals would like to rely on the United Nations to offer assistance, but if nations shrug the UN off, no one is willing to do anything more.

    At lot of us watched genocide in Rwanda and did little more than change the channel. There are hard acts against Muslims or other groups going on in Burma and elsewhere. No one is going to lift a finger to help any of these people.

    Kashmir? Tough luck.

    And conservatives may rattle swords at China. But in the end, they are looking for another trade deal. The old lie was that Nixon would open China and capitalism would lead to democracy. Instead, China turned out to be adept at adapting capitalism to authoritarianism.

    Maybe there is an answer down the road. But no one currently has a clue.

  43. 43.

    schrodingers_cat

    There was pogrom in Delhi against Muslims when the ?? was visiting. It was largely ignored here.

  44. 44.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    Maybe there is an answer down the road. But no one currently has a clue

    Sanctions? Military intervention and subsequent genuine nation building attempts? CIA-backed coups for democracy?

  46. 46.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    Maybe there is an answer down the road. But no one currently has a clue

    Sanctions? Military intervention and subsequent genuine nation building attempts? CIA-backed coups for democracy?

  49. 49.

    Eunicecycle

    I am horrified by what China is doing to its Muslim population. I was reading a long story about it and had to quit. The Chinese may not be using gas chambers, but they are killing with starvation, torture, and beatings. There is also the possibility they are killing them to harvest organs. If the prisoners are released they are shells of human beings. I’m just about shut down emotionally with the shit going down in this world and then feel guilty about that.

  51. 51.

    greenergood

    @trollhattan: The Chinese have been doing this for a very long time – replacing indigenous cultures with Han Chinese – Tibet, Mongolia, Xuighur – I’m no scholar of Chinese history, recent or otherwise – but I find it interesting that Revolutionary Maoist China seemed to reply to difficulties with brutal, sudden solutions – the exiling of ‘intellecuals’ to the countryside for re-education, the slaughter of sparrows because the gov’t thought they ate too much grain, and with their slaughter, the insect population ravaged Chinese agriculture. This Chinese gov’t/culture seems to have a much longer view, much more like their very ancient predecessors. The New Silk Road is a concept that stretches so far beyond almost anything in the West – it is a framework for ‘world domination’ that has not very much to do with open usage of weaponry, but instead a more subtle use of deploying ways to employ locals in Africa, South America, Central Asia, etc., etc. to extract their resources for the benefit of China. People are employed – crap wages, but more than they got before – and Han Chinese are placed as overseers of these local economic opportunities. We in the US/UK are so used to using weaponry as our method of co-option. We talk about ‘soft power’ but our governments look at it as just that: ‘soft’ power –  because hard power is embedded in our military/industrial complex, and is how our stock markets thrive. I have no love of China and its treatment of minorities it distrusts – the whole ‘Xuighurs are terrorists’, ‘Tibetans are splittists’, ‘Hong Kongers are devious spies’  memes are just horrible – but their idea of global expansion, so different from the West, is fascinating when contemplating what the West’s answer will be …

  52. 52.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood right now. I saw one of the most qualified presidential candidates in my lifetime lose because of her nasty ‘lady bits’. There is no way in hell it should have been a landslide victory but yet, here we are. And just wait for some idiots to ‘reconsider’ their support for Biden once he chooses a woman for VP. Stupidity is going to kill us in the end.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @No One of Consequence:

    But you will *never* have Taiwan. Let this be a lesson, and learn it well. Further education will be far more painful.

    The problem with any such statement is that if you make it, you have to mean it–which, in this case, means you are literally willing to endure total nuclear annihilation over this. And we’re not; I can say that right now. We are not willing to see every American exterminated in a massive ICBM exchange over Taiwan.

  56. 56.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Sanctions? Military intervention and subsequent genuine nation building attempts? CIA-backed coups for democracy?

    China could apply sanctions to us for our human rights violations, using Portland as an easy example.

    There is no such thing as nation building, imposed on an unwilling people. The CIA is a history of arrogant misadventure. Military intervention against a nuclear power? I don’t think so.

     

    ETA. The PRC might stop with Taiwan. And Hong Kong. And Tibet. Sanctions might slow them down, though.

  57. 57.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I wonder how many of the people decrying what’s happening in China opposed humanitarian interventions under Obama and Clinton when we were in a position to actually do something.

    @schrodingers_cat: Sorry, I have disagree with you here.  Quite a few people care about immigration.  It’s just that there is fuck all we can do about it until Trump is gone.  FWIW, in last night’s thread about priorities for a new administration, immigration was on my list of five.

  58. 58.

    wmd

    The right wing has been claiming that China is doing forced organ harvesting of Uighurs without anesthesia.  Here’s a sample from Jim RIckards (writing in an investment advisory newsletter):

    The leader of the Communist Party of China, Chairman Xi Jinping, likes to project a genial and sophisticated face to the world. His suits are perfectly tailored and he moves confidently among world leaders at multilateral summits and other gatherings. But beneath this façade he is a murderous and ruthless dictator of the worst kind. Xi has gathered up millions of Uighurs (a Turkic minority from northwestern China) and forced them into concentration camps along with Christians and other minorities who do not adhere to Communist Party doctrine. Some of these concentration camp prisoners are subject to forced organ removal without anesthetic to supply China’s organ transplant industry. The victims’ bodies are then cremated to destroy the evidence. That kind of treatment of the poor and weak is to be expected from a communist dictator.

    I doubt that he has any evidence of this, but sensationalism sells. As does the red baiting.

  59. 59.

    Calouste

    @Matt McIrvin: If the PRC finds some way to slush $10 billion to the shitgibbon, he’ll have the US military invade and disarm Taiwan for them.

  60. 60.

    Emma

    I’m sorry to say this, John, but regardless of the pandemic, the cultural genocide of Muslim minorities in particular has been a longstanding national security priority for the CCP. (Edit: one more thing to pin on W.’s wall, the total switch in US foreign policy to go after “extreme Islamists” after 9/11 was the greenlight to the CCP that increased oppression of their Muslim populations would actually be seen as laudable.) Read Leta Hong Fincher’s work for a lot more detail, but couples get financial rewards when a Han person marries a Uyghur, for example. The unspoken bargain is basically to marry into the Han and completely assimilate, or go to the modern mix of concentration camps and Unit 731. For Uyghurs lucky enough to escape the PRC, the CCP has completely cut off their attempts to communicate into the PRC. I’m extremely sorry to say this, but I really do believe that nothing short of WWIII will stop the CCP’s current policies.

  61. 61.

    Calouste

    @wmd: “Christians and other minorities”. That’s your bullshit indicator right there. Not that the locking up of minorities doesn’t happen, but emphasizing Christians makes clear who this is targeted at, it’s the religion addicts who are gullible enough to believe everything.

  62. 62.

    Brachiator

    @greenergood:

    The New Silk Road is a concept that stretches so far beyond almost anything in the West – it is a framework for ‘world domination’ that has not very much to do with open usage of weaponry, but instead a more subtle use of deploying ways to employ locals in Africa, South America, Central Asia, etc., etc. to extract their resources for the benefit of China.

    Extracting resources. You mean, like the West used to do, and still does?

    In the UK, Conservatives sold BREXIT to the masses with memories of empire. The false promise of making America great again depends on the fantasy of Fortress America dictating its terms to the rest of the world.

  65. 65.

    Kent

    @Yutsano:

    @trollhattan: The ROC has three advantages: they are armed to the teeth with more sophisticated weapons than the PRC has,  their army is much better trained in tactics and strategy, and there is an automatic standing order that if Taiwan is ever attacked the United States military will automatically go to defend Taiwan. Herr Drumpf wouldn’t even have to say anything, the military would be on it. And if you don’t think we could get forces there fast, Okinawa isn’t that far away and those Marines stay ready for this. There are reasons the PRC only potshots at the ROC. It’s nice to have alliances.

    In order to invade Taiwan the PRC would have to maintain both air and sea superiority within the Strait of Taiwan.  Those are the two things that the US and its allies are best at.  Does the Chinese Navy think it can really maintain naval and air superiority in support of an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?  How many of their amphibious assault ships would be left floating after the US got involved for real?

    That is an entirely different proposition than say rolling across the 38th parallel in Korea with a land army like they did in 1950.

    It is the same reason why the Germans were able to roll over France in short order but never managed to cross the English Channel.  Except that the Taiwan Strait is 180 miles wide, not about 20-25 miles wide for the English Channel.

  66. 66.

    The Moar You Know

    The vaccine will still have to be mass produced and delivered. That definitely will not be by this September

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Au contraire, my good friend.  They took the risk, just like Pfizer and a couple of others have.  They’re mass producing it RIGHT NOW. 

    So if it passes, it will be available.  In Britain first, but they’ll be shoving it out worldwide as fast as possible.

    Some of the side effects will be rough.  But no worse than what I just went through after my shingles vaccine.  Two doses.  The second dose I was flat on my ass sick as fuck for four days.  Better than shingles, trust me.

  67. 67.

    taumaturgo

    @wmd: Spectator magazine is an older version of Fox News. PM Johnson is a bad imitation of Donald but he is desperately trying to distract from the runaway train called Brexit. I would take anything these warmongers they have to say without substantive proof as enhanced bullshit.

    The Spectator is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs.[1] It was first published in July 1828,[2] thus making it the oldest weekly magazine in the world.[3] It is owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also own The Daily Telegraph newspaper, via Press Holdings. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture. Its editorial outlook is generally supportive of the Conservative Party, although regular contributors include some outside that fold, such as Frank Field, Rod Liddle and Slavoj ĆœiĆŸek. Alongside columns and features on current and not-so-current affairs, the magazine also contains arts pages on books, music, opera, and film and TV reviews.

    Editorship of The Spectator has often been a step on the ladder to high office in the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. Past editors include Boris Johnson (1999–2005) and other former cabinet members Ian Gilmour (1954–1959), Iain Macleod (1963–1965), and Nigel Lawson (1966–1970).

  68. 68.

    The Moar You Know

    Seriously, guys, you want the government to give a shit right now about the Uighurs?  Point out that they’re Caucasian.  (they are).  Chinamen killing white people for organs and living space.  That will do it.

    PS:  I don’t have the stomach for that kind of politicking, but if you care about these people enough, it’s the only way to motivate this government to do jack shit.

  69. 69.

    Kent

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    I confess I’m not familiar with that part of history. Wouldn’t surprise me with the Imperial Japanese though

    That’s where the Korean “comfort women” sex slavery thing came from.  Japan didn’t just conquer Korea but also much of northern China (Manchuria).

    Of course the Japanese were brutal towards the people of every single territory they conquered during that time period from China to the Philippines.

  70. 70.

    Chip Daniels

    In order for the United States to do anything, we need a competent government.

     

    I am hopeful that this will occur on Jan 20.

  71. 71.

    Kent

    @greenergood: From what I understand, the whole “New Silk Road” thing is mainly financed by the Chinese convincing local countries to take on massive debt to Chinese banks in order to build this massive infrastructure.   The whole enterprise depends on the ability of China to enforce debt payments, or leverage trade concessions based on debt.  The US has done much the same thing in Latin America for decades.

    If Central Asia decides in mass to default on China similar to the Latin American debt crises of decades past then I’m not sure what the Chinese could actually do.

    But my understanding of the whole issue is weak at best.

  72. 72.

    greenergood

    @Brachiator: Yes, of course the West has been extracting resources for ages from all the corners of their empires, but when China (PRC)  started to become more powerful, I think that its Western adversaries thought that China would reply with military steps – lots of arms, nuclear weapons, etc. So yes PRC does have nuclear weapons, and starting to flex their military muscles in the South China Sea, but I think for now their more recent tactics – to encourage business and extraction in 3rd-world countries – are an attempt to deploy ‘soft power’ implements, and that results in a great discord in US/UK – PRC  negotiations. US ‘soft’ policies are incredibly condescending; China’s are very hard-headed – it’s a question of approach to developing countries. I have no love of either approach – just being realistic …

  73. 73.

    greenergood

    @Kent: Sorry, Brachiator – will need to study up on on the debt problem re: the New Silk Road – just reading the book now, after reading its predecessor a few years ago, so I might be completely wrong – give me a week and we can check up with each other on BJ again! :-)

  77. 77.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Matt McIrvin: China has very few long-range nuclear-capable missiles (maybe 90 or so, possibly as few as thirty capable of reaching the US west coast). Its small fleet of shorter-range intermediate-range missiles are aimed at Russia and India since they’re the close-in nuclear threat they face, enough to act as a deterrent but no more since the old men in Beijing are well aware that having a lot of nukes is expensive and destabilising.

     

    Any US naval assets that get involved in a shooting war anywhere within a few hundred kilometres of the Chinese mainland can expect to come under sustained bombardment by land-based and air-launched ship-killer missiles — the only way to stop them is to bomb/missile the mainland’s missile launching sites and air bases which is an escalation any sane military command would be loath to encompass as it opens up the US mainland to retaliatory strikes. The last one of those that happened on 9/11 the US went absolutely bugfuck crazy, you may remember.

  78. 78.

    low-tech cyclist

    BTW There is the BEGINNING OF A Holocaust Going on in China AND NO ONE FUCKING CARES

    About 150,000 Americans will die of the coronavirus between now and January 20.  If not more.  And still mostly preventable.

    Trying to get people here to care about that (beyond “thoughts and prayers”-level caring) is a heavy lift.  (Finding this out has forced me to rethink a lot of assumptions.)  And we’re talking good liberals here, not like those fucking nihilists that inhabit the GOP.

    So getting Americans in general to care about some obscure people on the far side of the world…extremely heavy lift.  (Cf. Yemen for another example of this, and that’s well within the power of the U.S. to do something about, much more so than the Uighurs.)

    I wish it weren’t so, but it is.

  79. 79.

    Lyrebird

    @The Moar You Know: Yes indeedy –  one of the million trillion reasons I can’t wait for real leadership in the White House is to even imagine the US can do anything..

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    @greenergood: 

    US ‘soft’ policies are incredibly condescending; China’s are very hard-headed – it’s a question of approach to developing countries. I have no love of either approach – just being realistic

    I can accept that China might become a major power, or even the most dominant economic power on the planet, displacing the US. But this is not quite the same thing as China wanting to conquer the world.

    BTW, it’s been noted often in economic histories that the GDP of the US equaled or exceeded that of the UK by around 1870. That the UK might decline and be eclipsed was not necessarily inevitable, but likely. The same may be true of the United States as well.

    China’s problem is that state control blunts the ability of nimble Chinese business people to maximize their potential.

    I note, however, that China has done a better job at channeling the potential rapaciousness of its capitalists than has, for example, Russia, where greedy, unimaginative oligarchs squander opportunities.

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