Chengdu consulate is a very peculiar place. It shows very well the schizophrenia of a communist state.
You could walk past it and not even notice there's anything special about that place. Yes it has tall, well protected walls around it, but so do many schools in Chengdu (apparently kidnapping is/was a huge concern).
The place also has guards around it, but so do many office complexes. There's even one or two armed policemen -- a normal view around any bigger transport hub as well.
At least 3 years ago, when I went there, there was not a single US flag installed visible from the street. It's like CCP doesn't want (their own) people to see, "US is there".
The giveaway for me was the private via consultancy/advisory offices on the other side of the street. They all had USA flags in their windows.
Bo Xilai's defecting protege fled there. Chengdu was also a hotbed of cultural revolution where a lot of party leaders (including close relatives some of current leaders) were "suicided."
Other than that, Sichuan had a strong regional political culture, insular from on in the capital.
Americans can be proud that they are the only country that actually stands up against tyrants like the CCP.
Compare that to what we do here in Europe: not only don't we do anything after China took control of Hongkong. We finance Putin by building yet another gas pipeline. And we finance Erdogan via the "refugee pact".
I'm going to ignore all the blatantly groundless anti China bias here and factually point out that control over Hong Kong was in fact taken over by the British after China lost the opium war, which was a war that was started because China didn't want to buy all the opium drugs that the British were selling to us, and that this loss is and has always been one of our greatest humiliations through history
I suppose the US's war on drugs should similarly be condemned then. All those poor drug lords in Mexico and them dealers are just trying to make a living
Whataboutism aside, your analogy is still very off the mark. The government has every right to confiscate products trafficked into their country. The British opium trade was operating under legal contracts until China unilaterally revoked the trade agreement.
While HK is understandable, I wonder which war did China lose to India and cede Eastern Ladakh or Arunachal which China belligerently maintains are its territory?
Unfortunately China's overall expansionism is not reflecting well even on its legitimate claims in certain areas...
The border issues between China and India are a consequence of the expansion of the British empire. India simply inherited these borders when it became independent.
China is not really expansionist. What it does is to formally refuse to recognise borders drawn by the British as at time when China was weak and being carved up by Western powers.
Regarding Aksai Chin (Eastern Ladakh) even the British were not consistent, putting it in British India (Johnson Line) or China (Macartney-MacDonald Line).
Regarding Arunachal Pradesh the situation is quite clear from a Chinese point of view: This is a part of Tibet that was thus in China until the fall of the Qing Empire. At which point Tibet declared independence and the British took over Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet/China.
Obviously this was never accepted by China.
There are quite a handful of countries standing up against the CCP right now. Those with official diplomatic relationship with Taiwan, for example. I get your point though; many European leaders should feel bad (but they don’t, which is the problem).
Palau has quietly done a lot, for example. The move is particularly intriguing since they rely a lot on tourism, and Taiwan literally can never offer enough to compensate their economic loss. Money is clearly not the goal in this case.
Then, who stood up against all the western tyrants that killed all the Native American Indians in the United States and Canada?
Who stood up for the Aborigines of Australia, as the western tyrants killed them all, and stole their lands, and stole their future from them?
Who stood up for the Congolese Africans, as the Belgium King genocided them all?
Unless of course, your only explanation, was that this happened over 100 years ago, and the western people of today, are not like the western people of the past.
The funny thing is that, the western people of today, enjoy their wealth and privileges, because of all the genocide and plundering that their forefathers did in the past. So you can’t explain the present, without explaining how you got here from the past.
As a European, I feel eternally ashamed that the entire continent [and several other parts of the globe. I'm looking at you, Australia] never actually stands up against tyrants like the USA.
Just once it would be nice to hear "No!" as a response from Europe, instead of "How high?"
The biggest trick the USA has managed to pull is to convince so many impressionable people around the world that it's somehow "cool", "admirable" and a "freedom loving" place. In spite of:
* Having had a system of apartheid in place up until the 1950s
* Having been in conflict with <somebody> endlessly, since the end of WW2
* Having invaded or bombed more countries than any other nation on Earth
* having the highest murder rate of any country outside of South Africa
* Having the death penalty and the most brutal prison system of any western nation
* Having the largest debt of any nation
* Having the most violent paramilitary police force of any western nation
* Flouting international laws and treaties, whenever it suits.
etc.. etc..
If any other country in the world had a record a fraction as bad as the USA, it would be a pariah nation. But having the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and keeping everyone else dependent on the mighty dollar seems to get you a non-expiring 'Get Out of Jail Free Card'
You Americans really need to wake up and realise that you are just as much the "bad guy" as so many of the other countries you point the finger at --if not more so!
There’s a lot of websites on the internet that are happy to discuss politics. This one was created to have a narrow focus.
From the guidelines: “ Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.” https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
For better or worse, that has been mostly overridden by:
> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Through the community (made up of at least in great part, hackers) deciding that politics is interesting.
This is a privately owned property by an early-stage investment firm. Either it is a property of whim or it is a property of business, or perhaps a combination thereof.
Also, politics is the negotiation of power. I'm not sure why people wouldn't want to discuss that, especially given the potency of tech to insert itself into democratic politics. People who aren't in tech are certainly using tech to discuss the intersection between tech in politics.
Not everyone lives in a democracy where the tiny individual is to be concerned with national healthcare and defense. Some people just want to discuss state solutions for Flutter. Political discussion is very democratic-centric!
Political submissions tend to get flagged and removed. It's partly a function of how hostile the comments are. HN doesn't want flame wars. If a submission provokes polite, thoughtful discussion, it's more likely to stay up even if the article is highly political.
Its a well known dirty secret that consulates of all countries serve double duty as offices for foreign intelligence services. The two possibilities I see are either the US had intelligence of some particularly egregious use of this not-so-secret arrangement or the current administration has just taken an unthinkable sledgehammer to a serious diplomatic norm just to be "tough on china". The fact that biden is polling well in Texas and Trump's whole schtick in his ads is "Biden won't be hard on China", it seems likely to me that this whole thing is a reckless campaign stunt.
While the Houston fire department did show up, they respected Chinese sovereignty. In other words they did what a fire Dept is supposed to do for embassy calls, and the calls were not unfounded. The only other case I know of a consulate burning everything was the Soviets at the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
Yes. This seems to be an escalation on all channels driven by internal US politics. My worry is that a Trump administration faced with loosing an election is willing to take too risky bets.
Some more empty gestures, then some more special commercial privileges from China for our President’s immediate family members, or maybe a political favor like a transparently fabricated stack of “evidence” against Joe Biden, then everything will suddenly be okay, probably.
India just had a bunch of its soldiers murdered by a PRC attack. That is one. Japan is the PRC boogeyman whenever they need to whip the mob up. Taiwan, Vietnam etc
PRC behaviour resulted in it being surrounded with enemies instead of friends.
Last year US coordinated a deal together with Japan to have MHI help build indigenous modern submarines for Taiwan. Prototype looks suspiciously like Soryu class. Taiwan get half a dozen of those and their ambitions with Taiwan are finished.
PRC has played hard ball for a long time. US finally starting to play by same rules, it’s about time.
41 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 79.8 ms ] threadYou could walk past it and not even notice there's anything special about that place. Yes it has tall, well protected walls around it, but so do many schools in Chengdu (apparently kidnapping is/was a huge concern). The place also has guards around it, but so do many office complexes. There's even one or two armed policemen -- a normal view around any bigger transport hub as well.
At least 3 years ago, when I went there, there was not a single US flag installed visible from the street. It's like CCP doesn't want (their own) people to see, "US is there".
The giveaway for me was the private via consultancy/advisory offices on the other side of the street. They all had USA flags in their windows.
Other than that, Sichuan had a strong regional political culture, insular from on in the capital.
It's also very liveable compared to other mega-cities I've been to.
Compare that to what we do here in Europe: not only don't we do anything after China took control of Hongkong. We finance Putin by building yet another gas pipeline. And we finance Erdogan via the "refugee pact".
Unfortunately China's overall expansionism is not reflecting well even on its legitimate claims in certain areas...
China is not really expansionist. What it does is to formally refuse to recognise borders drawn by the British as at time when China was weak and being carved up by Western powers.
Regarding Aksai Chin (Eastern Ladakh) even the British were not consistent, putting it in British India (Johnson Line) or China (Macartney-MacDonald Line).
Regarding Arunachal Pradesh the situation is quite clear from a Chinese point of view: This is a part of Tibet that was thus in China until the fall of the Qing Empire. At which point Tibet declared independence and the British took over Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet/China. Obviously this was never accepted by China.
These issues are never black and white.
Right... Explains the whole North Natuna Sea debacle then. No real expansionism.
And Tibet is not part of China. Not when it's current dynasty was founded, anyway.
Sorry, but all the micro countries that recognize Taiwan do so for the money they get from Taiwan in exchange.
Then, who stood up against all the western tyrants that killed all the Native American Indians in the United States and Canada?
Who stood up for the Aborigines of Australia, as the western tyrants killed them all, and stole their lands, and stole their future from them?
Who stood up for the Congolese Africans, as the Belgium King genocided them all?
Unless of course, your only explanation, was that this happened over 100 years ago, and the western people of today, are not like the western people of the past.
The funny thing is that, the western people of today, enjoy their wealth and privileges, because of all the genocide and plundering that their forefathers did in the past. So you can’t explain the present, without explaining how you got here from the past.
The "western people" of today have learned and developed. As have most Chinese people. But the CCP has not.
Culture in free countries improves over time. Culture in tyrannies stagnates.
Just once it would be nice to hear "No!" as a response from Europe, instead of "How high?"
* Having had a system of apartheid in place up until the 1950s
* Having been in conflict with <somebody> endlessly, since the end of WW2
* Having invaded or bombed more countries than any other nation on Earth
* having the highest murder rate of any country outside of South Africa
* Having the death penalty and the most brutal prison system of any western nation
* Having the largest debt of any nation
* Having the most violent paramilitary police force of any western nation
* Flouting international laws and treaties, whenever it suits.
etc.. etc..
If any other country in the world had a record a fraction as bad as the USA, it would be a pariah nation. But having the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world and keeping everyone else dependent on the mighty dollar seems to get you a non-expiring 'Get Out of Jail Free Card'
You Americans really need to wake up and realise that you are just as much the "bad guy" as so many of the other countries you point the finger at --if not more so!
From the guidelines: “ Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.” https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Through the community (made up of at least in great part, hackers) deciding that politics is interesting.
Also, politics is the negotiation of power. I'm not sure why people wouldn't want to discuss that, especially given the potency of tech to insert itself into democratic politics. People who aren't in tech are certainly using tech to discuss the intersection between tech in politics.
Best to put it — "Do you want Flutter, or do you want to see your another day in a civil state?"
What is more important, your job/hobby, or being able to live/eat/breathe tomorrow?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9E09BekUH4
Presumably as a payback for the fire brigade showing up at the Houston embassy.
To be honest. This is terrible. The US China-relations risk spiral out of control and idiotic unrestricted nationalism will rule the day.
While the Houston fire department did show up, they respected Chinese sovereignty. In other words they did what a fire Dept is supposed to do for embassy calls, and the calls were not unfounded. The only other case I know of a consulate burning everything was the Soviets at the height of the Cuban missile crisis.
> Will
??? from my standpoint, it looks like it already does, and did for the last decade or so,
Armed conflict against China? Nuclear warfare against China?
America has 5000 nuclear ICBM missiles. China has 300 nuclear ICBM missiles of lesser quality and precision.
Is America looking to exchange a few American cities, in order to destroy the entire Chinese civilization?
What American cities do you want to sacrifice, in order to meet your political objectives?
Some more empty gestures, then some more special commercial privileges from China for our President’s immediate family members, or maybe a political favor like a transparently fabricated stack of “evidence” against Joe Biden, then everything will suddenly be okay, probably.
> America has 5000 nuclear ICBM missiles.
That is high by 4,600.
India just had a bunch of its soldiers murdered by a PRC attack. That is one. Japan is the PRC boogeyman whenever they need to whip the mob up. Taiwan, Vietnam etc
PRC behaviour resulted in it being surrounded with enemies instead of friends.
Last year US coordinated a deal together with Japan to have MHI help build indigenous modern submarines for Taiwan. Prototype looks suspiciously like Soryu class. Taiwan get half a dozen of those and their ambitions with Taiwan are finished.
PRC has played hard ball for a long time. US finally starting to play by same rules, it’s about time.