> I hope these are things which remain in place when Biden gets in,
I don't really see why they wouldn't be, where is the pro-china coalition in politics at the moment? On top of that, the idea that because Biden didn't go around saying "China!" in an amusing fashion doesn't mean he's best buddies with Xi Jinping.
You must not have seen the active investigations into the Biden family... for securities fraud. They took money directly from the Chinese (billions to start a company and millions in a “forgivable, interest free loan”)
edit: you have provided a citation now - Tucker Carlson..., but is that it? So there's no evidence of any services being rendered, or anything even close to a smoking gun other than proof that Beau was the better Biden?
Most of the videos about this have been scrubbed / are not searchable on Google or YouTube. DuckDuckGo will let you search some stuff.
The laptop doesn’t directly link Joe Biden. However, Joe Biden did use airforce two to fly himself and son to China. Shortly after Hunter closed a deal with China.
There's a loophole in US law that a family member can receive bribes, in this case $1 billion from the CCP and Ukraine, which is what Hunter did while Joe was VP.
However, obviously corruption is corruption.
Hunter has no useful skills, so what possible reason would the CCP even talk to him, let alone give him $1 billion, aside from influencing Joe?
The idea that they just gave him a billion dollars in his current account and said toodle-pip is literally just propaganda from the Trump campaign.
To put one thing to bed, he shouldn't have been in China in the first place, but the idea that Joe Biden is going to suddenly start doing China's bidding is ridiculous. What does he gain from doing it? The risk/reward is terrible.
As with everything Trump accuses anyone of, it's just projection because he has been consistently criticized and threatened with litigations over his business dealings - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/donald-trump-chinese... his companies have hundreds of millions in completely dark debt, secret bank accounts in china etc. If you read the art of the deal, it's his entire MO - trust no-one, always attack when attacked and so on and so forth. That's why he said "No puppet, no puppet, you're the puppet" in the debate rather than actually contesting the argument.
> the idea that Joe Biden is going to suddenly start doing China's bidding is ridiculous
The idea that Biden will take a hard line on China is equally ridiculous. He's been in the federal government since before Mao died. If he was going to take a hard line on China he had decades to do it and never did.
> The idea that Biden will take a hard line on China is equally ridiculous.
As I've said elsewhere, politicians can be remarkably flexible. Ignoring that there is no realpolitik for him to have been hard on china while the country was liberalizing, close to 90% of Republicans and a supermajority of democrats thinks China is a strategic enemy of the US - you gain nothing from being soft on china in today's political climate.
> but the idea that Joe Biden is going to suddenly start doing China's bidding is ridiculous. What does he gain from doing it? The risk/reward is terrible.
To protect his son. The CCP has all kinds of video on Hunter, who's a drug addict.
It's not Trump making the accusations here. It's the DOJ and U.S. Senate Committee, documentation and emails on his laptop, as well as Hunter's former business partner.
Seriously, why are you defending the Bidens? The Democrats spent 4 years making baseless treason charges against Trump via the Mueller probe, while the Bidens had just moved a billion dollars around for them and the CCP. Are you really that partisan that you would sell out America?
Virtually every leftist comment on HN is contradicted with online evidence deliberately skipped by the MSM.
I’m not being conspiratorial, although upon rereading I could see someone make that assumption. What I mean is that Trump is so hated that reversing his policies score political wins, regardless of the actual policy—much like how Obama was treated by the radical right. Trump has taken a harder line than previous presidents on China, although to be sure he has done a shit job of it if he actually wanted to stress the CCP. Any liberal politician can expect sweet lobbying on behalf of China-friendly interests, and score political points by reversing Trump’s China policies. Win-win for anyone that doesn’t actually care about the freedoms of the Chinese people.
Similar things can be said about other Trump policies that are actually good, like the NASA Artemis project and Space Force. Expect them to get severely defunded under a Biden administration, even though they are actually good bipartisan policies prior to Trump.
I’m NOT a trump supporter. But I evaluate his and any other politician’s policies on a case by case basis. I hope that Biden does the same, but I’m not naïve enough to expect it.
The latter I could see happening, but not being eliminated, the former is just bad politics. Biden is almost definitely going to be more like Gerald Ford than some would like him to be, they'll probably have some kind of formal investigation into the Trump administration but not much else from the executive-branch itself.
> But I evaluate his and any other politician’s policies on a case by case basis.
This is fairly naive, i.e. ignoring that (Trump being the most shining example but in no way unique) politicians are two-faced by default, policy alone doth not a president make - no amount of policy would allow you to decide what type of president will condone QAnon or write a short love letter to people threatening to shoot up the capitol building.
As per YouGov, an overwhelming majority of republicans and a supermajority of democrats thinks China is a strategic enemy of the United States now, it's just plain bad (not just bad, diabolically awful) political strategy to undo what little Trump did. Some of his tariffs might go, but they were effectively just a Tax on US consumers and didn't move the Chinese an inch so that's not really up for discussion.
Are we talking about the same Artimis program? The one that has produced agreements signed by 10 different nations or space agencies agreeing to guidelines for the peaceful, cooperative exploration and utilization of space? The one that has, every step along the way, fostered cooperation with our international allies? The one that has revitalized kids interest in space, Moon, and Mars as a place that people actually go?
That's just bad politics?
And yes, I am concerned that because Trump politicized NASA with his ridiculous 2024 Moon landing date that Biden will throw out the baby with the bathwater and cancel the whole program, as Obama tried to do in 2009-2011.
There is an objective view to be had about the accuracy of criticisms of any particular political party, because some of them do have some element of truth.
But we are passed the point of objectivity in what may be the first battle in a civil war. There were casualties and there are plots of a second attack. So at this point you just have to choose sides and consider that your ability to retain support amongst your peers means not using the phrases that "the other side" created.
The disclaimers about your affiliations won't help. I'm just the messenger.
what would have to occur for you to change your mind about the current reality, if a militia aiming to restrain (or hang) the vice president while carrying confederate and foreign nation's flags and beating a police officer to death with the American flag didn't get that point across already? because they've been trying to coordinate a followup so I'm not sure what stage of grief you're at, but I'm way past stage 1
I wonder what you think my positions are, as I haven't voiced them yet. But you nevertheless feel certain I should change them. Be careful of projecting your own expectations onto other participants in a discussion.
Your position is that what I said is hyperbole. That's not projecting, that's a direct quote.
Hyperbole means exaggeration for effect, which is not what I did at all, in my view. So what would be necessary to happen for your position to change - which you really did make abundantly clear that my reality and description of reality is hyperbole. What I said is completely intended to be taken literally. What [else] would need to happen for you to take what I said as the literal and most accurate way of describing reality?
> But we are passed the point of objectivity in what may be the first battle in a civil war.
A small crowd of extremist nut jobs walked from one end of the national mall to the other and pushed their way past an ill-equipped police squad to damage some property in the national capital, and assaulted one police officer enough that he would die of his wounds.
This is a very bad thing. I hope that every single one of the people involved are caught, tried, and pay for their crimes. The desecration of the capital itself is shameful and sacrilegious, and that is not lost on me either.
But "civil war"? Please research what an actual civil war is like. Watch some news coverage of Syria. The storming of the capital is an act of insurrection, legally speaking, and it should be prosecuted as such. But are you really suggesting that we are near the point of nation-wide violent armed uprising, pitting brother-against-brother in a conflict that will rip apart any semblance of society (in which I MUST choose sides!), and reduce our cities to cratered wastelands like has happened to Aleppo or Raqqa?
I generously don't think that is what you literally mean. But then I don't know how else to interpret "the first battle in a civil war" except as exaggeration for effect, hyperbole. Please don't do that.
Summary: Uses Trump Derangement Syndrome as an explanation, gaslights everyone about their political affiliation without specifically saying - not that we had any expectation or obligation for you to -, deflects, proselytizes, and then exits the conversation.
That conversation flowchart alone makes it clear who the influences of that particular filter bubble are.
> Trump derangement syndrome. Anything he touches must automatically be reversed.
Interesting projection, as everything Obama did good or bad had to be gone. I don't think Biden will do the same thing, as some Trump policies must be beneficial in some ways.
> Trump derangement syndrome. Anything he touches must automatically be reversed.
I think this is mostly a figment of the right’s imagination. Dems were all in on those $2k stimulus checks and China-bashing seems to have broad support. Trump leaning on other NATO members to pay more (although not the way he went about it) is largely seen as a win.
Trump is an aberration and Trumpism needs to die a death, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I definitely don't agree with this. The vibe I've gotten from following center-left journalism is that the alignment against Trump has come at a heavy cost to traditional liberal values when it so happens Trump touts them (whether he is intentionally or not is a different matter). Some things that come to mind are Glenn Greenwald's writings re: the left's fascination with the Russia conspiracy, and Matt Taibbi's writings on Russia as well as some other social issues of late. Particularly (and probably because this is the overlap where Trump is the most "liberal"), the left seems to have seriously backed off their non-interventionist foreign policy desires as a direct result of Trump.
Some leftists are wrong about what it actually entails, but the three letter agencies are mainly populated by republicans, and they are the ones (and the senate Intel committee IIRC) establishing the Russia chronology.
Also, Glenn Greenwald is absolutely obsessed with the Russia thing to the point that he could reasonably be considered more in line with the right than the left on this.
"We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his original journalistic roots, not The Intercept." etc. etc.
Do you think we'd see a flurry of executive action this month on China policy in the alternate universe where Trump has a second term.
> What is the play with Biden and China?
There's nothing underhanded going on between Biden and China, at least not in my mind. But Biden campaigned on returning to the status quo, meaning little action on China. They're implementing these EOs now because they think he won't undo them, but he won't pass them either if given the choice.
I kind of think it might be a good thing that they are rushing them out. It allows Biden to appear more moderate and it gives him more bargaining power to work with after the transition. Appeasement hasn't worked. I would be terrified to be a citizen in a country anywhere near China right now, countries in the region are slowly getting muscled and beaten back. I feel horrible for Hong Kong and Taiwan is next unless we can back them up. Hopefully a little good comes out of the cluster f of drama in the Whitehouse.
There's a very large pro-money coalition in politics at all moments.
People who stand to make money off of business with China will always win against people who don't stand to lose money by curtailing it. It's a matter of commitment.
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Can you please not do that? It's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. This is because it destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for political battle. Can you please not do that? It's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and it's the line across which we start banning accounts (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...), regardless of which politics they're battling for. This is because it destroys what HN is supposed to exist for, which is curious conversation on a wide range of topics.
> "The order, which takes effect Monday, bans Americans from trading the securities of dozens of Chinese companies... The order initially applied to 31 companies and has since grown to 35. Many are private firms with little connection to Wall Street, but a few have American depositary receipts listed on the NYSE. These include three large Chinese telecom carriers, as well as oil-and-gas driller Cnooc Ltd. , which was added to the blacklist in December."
HN readers would be well advised to ask the question of how they should adjust things in their teams & companies going fo to avoid both the legal liability and the ethical stain of CCP
All economic activity in a nation is going to benefit the government in some way. Is this a call for full cuba-level embargo of the nation of China, or what here?
Don’t put yourself or your company in a position where China would influence your ability to make the right decision. That doesn’t require an embargo, but some companies maybe are best served by abstinence.
China isn’t the cheapest manufacturer any more and there are large costs in offshoring manufacturing anyway (essentially having to overmanage to get the desired outcome) so there is an increasing trend of returning manufacturing jobs to rich countries.
But also yes, directly, don’t let a difference in cost compromise your moral compass.
Slavery is also cost effective, would you argue for that too? (of course that is indeed one of the issues of doing business in china too)
If you are a large multinational you can have those considerations, but as a startup you have to take the ecosystem as it currently is, which means most of the manufacturing know-how is currently based in China. There are simply lots of processes which can only be bought for prototype quantities in most western countries. If you try to scale those it's just outside of your budget to do anything but go to China with it.
So as a startup you are beyond moral considerations because you’re a startup?
At what point do you have to do the right thing as a startup? Slavery? Child labor? Genocide?
Clearly there must be a line where morality becomes more important than money, where exactly should that line be and how should it be different for small companies and big ones? New ones and old ones?
Or are morals just important when they no longer compete with dollars?
There are at least a million people, and likely several million, in Chinese concentration camps right now, so it's clear that they don't have to cross international borders to commit human rights violations.
The lifting of millions of Chinese out of poverty has been one of the greatest humanitarian achievements in human history and shouldn't be understated, but it doesn't justify the human rights violations that are being committed by the CCP today.
There are three million graves in the Middle East over the lies and murder of the US Government, yet no one is calling for an embargo of the United States.
This concern is a mirage of a geostrategic struggle.
The same goes for nations also. Ethical concerns are too often ignored in favor of "economic growth" but at the cost of integrity (or as you put it, ability to make the right decisions). As an Australian it's been interesting to observe the cause and effect of our leaders celebrating exports and the sale of national assets to China. The long term effects of these deals are only just starting to be felt.
Instead of telling us, maybe you should tell all the fortune 500 companies. The elites.
Also if you are into "ethical stain", then obviously you are against all trade? Which major trading nation doesn't have "ethical stain". Or are you selective when it comes to virtue signaling?
I agree that the GP dipped a foot into nationalistic flamewar but that's no reason to jump into the pool.
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. That's obviously against the rules and obviously not ok and you've been flaming up a storm here.
In case anyone is worried about this, we ban accounts that abuse the site regardless of ideology. If this account were posting the same way but arguing for opposite positions, we'd ban it the same way.
Actually, the irony is how much all these sorts of account have in common with each other on both sides of the ideological divide. They all resemble one another far more than they do the bulk of the readership here, who respect the rules, come to HN out of intellectual interest, and would prefer not to swim in hellfire.
tldr: the amount of foreign capital allowed into US assets and of CCP companies on the US stock exchanges is problematic. I've placed my bet on the CCP.
This is a massive problem. SoftBank is CCP money.
HR2513
Illicit Cash Act
Equitable Act
All 3 of these facilitate sketchy securities investments from offshore entities.
My operating investment thesis:
I bought and HODL'd TSLA at $362 with as much margin as was allowed with this thesis.
Musk is an intellectually dishonest figure, but it doesn't matter, money matters.
Every time the CCP pumps the US asset class, it forces other central banks to print more via pump and dump cycles.
Each cycle is worth a lot in terms of transferring wealth to the CCP.
This number can be trillions at some point.
TSLA has onshore assets in China.
I'll be closely monitoring digitization of RMB/Yuan as well as China's trade surplus, if the trade surplus drops by a lot, then the CCP's thirst for USD will go up.
From a security standpoint, I've been told that the maritime industry is rife with gaping security holes. Still reading into it though.
> Every time the CCP pumps the US asset class, it forces other central banks to print more via pump and dump cycles.
> Each cycle is worth a lot in terms of transferring wealth to the CCP.
I don't understand at all what you are saying. Which asset class is the CCP buying? Why are central banks forced to print more? How does this transfer wealth to CCP?
Last I checked foreigners owned ~40% of U.S. stocks. It’s a strength and a risk. Asset pricing going up magnifies both.
In a similar vain, there’s a reason why the RMB is not a major contender to the dollar yet. It’s more strategic to gain an increasing percentage of world trade and influence, then “flip the switch” and request/require/demand RMB over dollars. Look at bond yields in China, they’re every fixed income managers dream. They have a positive, meaningful yield and are very safe.
Among them, Huawei - we all know - but This time Hikvision made the list as well. Frankly, I actually do support not buying Hikvision cameras or any other device that is cloud based that phones home your location and activity.
I have to ask, why would Trump make the time to do this with only a few days remaining in office? The only conclusion I come to based off an understanding of his persona is that he is doing insider trading
I don’t think Trump gives a shit, but there are some crusaders in the administration like Pompeo who are trying to get a controversial agenda through in the end days of the admin.
Read the order, it makes pretty clear points. Your conclusion could be made about any time period, if thats what you have already decided on, as if it can be a singular motivation.
When you reach a certain place in society you get to trade on material non-public information before the rest of the market, moving on.
It's a very important thing to do. It's been a long standing problem. The CCP is a harsh and restrictive government and we don't want to be funding advancements in their military.
This may affect supply chains for civilian supply chains, and then China's corops and government will have to make a choice: Keep contracts to make tons of consumer goods or continue to supply the military side.
If people find this interesting, consider reading the PLA document called 'Unrestriced Warfare'. Pretty terrifying, these measures don't come out of no where.
I am not in the field of Geopolitics, so I only heard opinions from Twitter or Quora mostly. Apparently lots of people over there perceived that Dugin's influence to Putin was over inflated. Especially after Trump was elected along with Russian interference scandal. Putin as an ex-spook was perceived as a kind of short sighted yet dynamic instead of formulating and following a long term static grand strategy as Dugin suggest.
Which is hilarious, because it's like a Trojan propaganda piece. Pretend like it's a secret playbook, "oops, you weren't supposed to see our totally secret plan for world domination!!!"
If China has been "developing and deploying weapons of mass destruction", and has "directly threatened the United States homeland", why is America's response limited to mere financial regulation?
The US has used sanctions on Iran, Cuba and countless others. You can argue their effectiveness, and how they may just hurt the country's citizens..
but this has been a long standing problem. It's something Trump can do that might slow China growing their military presence. We are talking about a country with very restrictive freedom of speech laws and who reeducate certain ethnic minorities.
I wonder if this will affect civilian supply chains as well? Will some governments and their corporate counterparts be forced to decide if they want to supply consumer goods or build their military instead?
I'm sure China could eventually create shell companies to move some resources, but it would slow down military growth. It would also be something Biden would be foolish to try and undo, because it would give the impression of special interests in China. After the Swalwell allegations, it would provide a good check.
Short answer: someone came across the piece and submitted it.
Speculation: people are paying a lot of attention to what's happening at the White House right now. From some of the comments, there's also some misunderstanding of when this happened, and may think it's something the administration is trying to get in under the wire in the last 10 days (even though that's not the case).
beginning 9:30 a.m. eastern standard time on January 11, 2021, any transaction in publicly traded securities, or any securities that are derivative of, or are designed to provide investment exposure to such securities, of any Communist Chinese military company as defined in section 4(a)(i) of this order, by any United States person; and
I assume you aren't allowed to name names but at least one person is trying to establish a narrative that they're rushing through executive orders because they're worried about Biden being a secret CCP member.
Who's saying that? The Biden-China things which seem to be being explored is a conspiracy theory, as in an unsubstantiated theory about an alleged conspiracy, but I don't think anyone is under the impression that the Chinese getting up to stuff is a conspiracy theory.
And clearly China wants to do much more than incorporating Taiwan, given their more assertive foreign policies, both within the current international frameworks (United Nations, World Health Organization), and outside of those frameworks (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Belt and Road Initiative).
For a very very brief overview of some goals announced by China (dominate production of key technologies by 2025, build a world-class military by 2035, be a superpower by 2049), see a short summary in Section 3 of the Introduction of this proposal:
Overall, the proposed strategy to counter China suggests working with other democracies to out-compete China in military and innovation, while cooperating with China on common interests (public health, climate change).
> the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one..
(In the rabbit hole right now. Eye opening. Would recommend.)
On a related note, while some may think that this is a consequence of China's one-child policy, a reasonable argument can be made that the policy was actually completely unnecessary: the fertility rates had already started plummeting for the 15 years prior to it being announced due to urbanization and other factors:
> How do China's ambitions stack up with their upcoming demographic changes?
Personal take: As long as Xi is in power, China’s ambitions are unlikely to scale back (at least on the surface), for otherwise it would be his failures.
For example, after Xi set the goal to clear poverty in China by 2020, even after COVID, China did not give up on the goal, ignoring if achieving the goal on surface is sustainable:
" exploiting United States capital to resource and to enable the development and modernization of its military, intelligence, and other security apparatuses, "
is there any point to this, if the united states universities are allowing Chinese Students to study and research with absolut freedom, many of the Scientists were educated in American universities.
one of million titles, : Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases
if you do not want china to steal your things. block them in every level possible.
What's the CCP's greatest investment? US treasuries.
To the tune of trillions of dollars, the CCP is funding the tyrannical American military that invaded Iraq, and killed hundreds of thousand of innocent civilians.
Those curious about this could read more about this here, which documented Obama's unrestricted drone warfare[1]:
108 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadI don't really see why they wouldn't be, where is the pro-china coalition in politics at the moment? On top of that, the idea that because Biden didn't go around saying "China!" in an amusing fashion doesn't mean he's best buddies with Xi Jinping.
Attorney general of Delaware: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/10/what-is-known-abou...
Family business associate: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4NcaxJifxY&feature=youtu.be
Senate report: https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Rep...
edit: you have provided a citation now - Tucker Carlson..., but is that it? So there's no evidence of any services being rendered, or anything even close to a smoking gun other than proof that Beau was the better Biden?
Top result for me https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/09/28/hunter-biden-senate-r...
Very loudly states The report presents no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden, and omits testimony that exculpates him
You can actually find an archive dump of the laptop on the internet yourself (there’s emails, photos, etc).
I linked to the actual full senate report. See below:
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Rep...
Most of the videos about this have been scrubbed / are not searchable on Google or YouTube. DuckDuckGo will let you search some stuff.
The laptop doesn’t directly link Joe Biden. However, Joe Biden did use airforce two to fly himself and son to China. Shortly after Hunter closed a deal with China.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/29/secret-service...
Joe Biden’s brother James is also under investigation.
Brother: https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/22/while-the-spotlight-shi...
However, obviously corruption is corruption.
Hunter has no useful skills, so what possible reason would the CCP even talk to him, let alone give him $1 billion, aside from influencing Joe?
Money. It lets them whitewash their investments; It's the system by which Theranos had all kinds of Randoms on the board.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/may/22/hunter-biden-...
The idea that they just gave him a billion dollars in his current account and said toodle-pip is literally just propaganda from the Trump campaign.
To put one thing to bed, he shouldn't have been in China in the first place, but the idea that Joe Biden is going to suddenly start doing China's bidding is ridiculous. What does he gain from doing it? The risk/reward is terrible.
As with everything Trump accuses anyone of, it's just projection because he has been consistently criticized and threatened with litigations over his business dealings - https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/10/donald-trump-chinese... his companies have hundreds of millions in completely dark debt, secret bank accounts in china etc. If you read the art of the deal, it's his entire MO - trust no-one, always attack when attacked and so on and so forth. That's why he said "No puppet, no puppet, you're the puppet" in the debate rather than actually contesting the argument.
The idea that Biden will take a hard line on China is equally ridiculous. He's been in the federal government since before Mao died. If he was going to take a hard line on China he had decades to do it and never did.
As I've said elsewhere, politicians can be remarkably flexible. Ignoring that there is no realpolitik for him to have been hard on china while the country was liberalizing, close to 90% of Republicans and a supermajority of democrats thinks China is a strategic enemy of the US - you gain nothing from being soft on china in today's political climate.
To protect his son. The CCP has all kinds of video on Hunter, who's a drug addict.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/how-...
> As with everything Trump accuses anyone of,
It's not Trump making the accusations here. It's the DOJ and U.S. Senate Committee, documentation and emails on his laptop, as well as Hunter's former business partner.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/09/politics/hunter-biden-tax-inv...
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Rep...
Seriously, why are you defending the Bidens? The Democrats spent 4 years making baseless treason charges against Trump via the Mueller probe, while the Bidens had just moved a billion dollars around for them and the CCP. Are you really that partisan that you would sell out America?
Virtually every leftist comment on HN is contradicted with online evidence deliberately skipped by the MSM.
I’m not being conspiratorial, although upon rereading I could see someone make that assumption. What I mean is that Trump is so hated that reversing his policies score political wins, regardless of the actual policy—much like how Obama was treated by the radical right. Trump has taken a harder line than previous presidents on China, although to be sure he has done a shit job of it if he actually wanted to stress the CCP. Any liberal politician can expect sweet lobbying on behalf of China-friendly interests, and score political points by reversing Trump’s China policies. Win-win for anyone that doesn’t actually care about the freedoms of the Chinese people.
Similar things can be said about other Trump policies that are actually good, like the NASA Artemis project and Space Force. Expect them to get severely defunded under a Biden administration, even though they are actually good bipartisan policies prior to Trump.
I’m NOT a trump supporter. But I evaluate his and any other politician’s policies on a case by case basis. I hope that Biden does the same, but I’m not naïve enough to expect it.
The latter I could see happening, but not being eliminated, the former is just bad politics. Biden is almost definitely going to be more like Gerald Ford than some would like him to be, they'll probably have some kind of formal investigation into the Trump administration but not much else from the executive-branch itself.
> But I evaluate his and any other politician’s policies on a case by case basis.
This is fairly naive, i.e. ignoring that (Trump being the most shining example but in no way unique) politicians are two-faced by default, policy alone doth not a president make - no amount of policy would allow you to decide what type of president will condone QAnon or write a short love letter to people threatening to shoot up the capitol building.
As per YouGov, an overwhelming majority of republicans and a supermajority of democrats thinks China is a strategic enemy of the United States now, it's just plain bad (not just bad, diabolically awful) political strategy to undo what little Trump did. Some of his tariffs might go, but they were effectively just a Tax on US consumers and didn't move the Chinese an inch so that's not really up for discussion.
That's just bad politics?
And yes, I am concerned that because Trump politicized NASA with his ridiculous 2024 Moon landing date that Biden will throw out the baby with the bathwater and cancel the whole program, as Obama tried to do in 2009-2011.
But we are passed the point of objectivity in what may be the first battle in a civil war. There were casualties and there are plots of a second attack. So at this point you just have to choose sides and consider that your ability to retain support amongst your peers means not using the phrases that "the other side" created.
The disclaimers about your affiliations won't help. I'm just the messenger.
Please stop escalating things with hyperbole.
what would have to occur for you to change your mind about the current reality, if a militia aiming to restrain (or hang) the vice president while carrying confederate and foreign nation's flags and beating a police officer to death with the American flag didn't get that point across already? because they've been trying to coordinate a followup so I'm not sure what stage of grief you're at, but I'm way past stage 1
Hyperbole means exaggeration for effect, which is not what I did at all, in my view. So what would be necessary to happen for your position to change - which you really did make abundantly clear that my reality and description of reality is hyperbole. What I said is completely intended to be taken literally. What [else] would need to happen for you to take what I said as the literal and most accurate way of describing reality?
A small crowd of extremist nut jobs walked from one end of the national mall to the other and pushed their way past an ill-equipped police squad to damage some property in the national capital, and assaulted one police officer enough that he would die of his wounds.
This is a very bad thing. I hope that every single one of the people involved are caught, tried, and pay for their crimes. The desecration of the capital itself is shameful and sacrilegious, and that is not lost on me either.
But "civil war"? Please research what an actual civil war is like. Watch some news coverage of Syria. The storming of the capital is an act of insurrection, legally speaking, and it should be prosecuted as such. But are you really suggesting that we are near the point of nation-wide violent armed uprising, pitting brother-against-brother in a conflict that will rip apart any semblance of society (in which I MUST choose sides!), and reduce our cities to cratered wastelands like has happened to Aleppo or Raqqa?
I generously don't think that is what you literally mean. But then I don't know how else to interpret "the first battle in a civil war" except as exaggeration for effect, hyperbole. Please don't do that.
> What [else] would need to happen for you to take what I said as the literal and most accurate way of describing reality?
That conversation flowchart alone makes it clear who the influences of that particular filter bubble are.
Interesting projection, as everything Obama did good or bad had to be gone. I don't think Biden will do the same thing, as some Trump policies must be beneficial in some ways.
I think this is mostly a figment of the right’s imagination. Dems were all in on those $2k stimulus checks and China-bashing seems to have broad support. Trump leaning on other NATO members to pay more (although not the way he went about it) is largely seen as a win.
Trump is an aberration and Trumpism needs to die a death, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The idea that there is nothing there at all is a conspiracy in itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_investigation_origins_c... it even has its own Wikipedia page)
Some leftists are wrong about what it actually entails, but the three letter agencies are mainly populated by republicans, and they are the ones (and the senate Intel committee IIRC) establishing the Russia chronology.
Also, Glenn Greenwald is absolutely obsessed with the Russia thing to the point that he could reasonably be considered more in line with the right than the left on this.
"We have the greatest respect for the journalist Glenn Greenwald used to be, and we remain proud of much of the work we did with him over the past six years. It is Glenn who has strayed from his original journalistic roots, not The Intercept." etc. etc.
What is the play with Biden and China? It makes no sense to any part of his base, and it just reeks of koolaid-drinking.
> What is the play with Biden and China?
There's nothing underhanded going on between Biden and China, at least not in my mind. But Biden campaigned on returning to the status quo, meaning little action on China. They're implementing these EOs now because they think he won't undo them, but he won't pass them either if given the choice.
People who stand to make money off of business with China will always win against people who don't stand to lose money by curtailing it. It's a matter of commitment.
It's their job.
> "The order, which takes effect Monday, bans Americans from trading the securities of dozens of Chinese companies... The order initially applied to 31 companies and has since grown to 35. Many are private firms with little connection to Wall Street, but a few have American depositary receipts listed on the NYSE. These include three large Chinese telecom carriers, as well as oil-and-gas driller Cnooc Ltd. , which was added to the blacklist in December."
But also yes, directly, don’t let a difference in cost compromise your moral compass.
Slavery is also cost effective, would you argue for that too? (of course that is indeed one of the issues of doing business in china too)
At what point do you have to do the right thing as a startup? Slavery? Child labor? Genocide?
Clearly there must be a line where morality becomes more important than money, where exactly should that line be and how should it be different for small companies and big ones? New ones and old ones?
Or are morals just important when they no longer compete with dollars?
As a matter of ethics.. they've lifted a billion humans out of back-breaking subsistence farming and have invaded zero countries in the last 30 years.
The lifting of millions of Chinese out of poverty has been one of the greatest humanitarian achievements in human history and shouldn't be understated, but it doesn't justify the human rights violations that are being committed by the CCP today.
This concern is a mirage of a geostrategic struggle.
We can never know for sure, but my belief is that if the other side had won the civil war, this would have happened several decades sooner
We in the west could have stopped screwing them over a couple centuries earlier as well. Might have avoided the whole civil war ever happening.
EDIT: Was being light-hearted about the "holding a grudge". Been a while since Mao is all.
> legal liability and the ethical stain of CCP
You just sound like a garden variety propagandist.
There is over half a trillion worth of trade between the US and China. Even with the "trade war".
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html
Instead of telling us, maybe you should tell all the fortune 500 companies. The elites.
Also if you are into "ethical stain", then obviously you are against all trade? Which major trading nation doesn't have "ethical stain". Or are you selective when it comes to virtue signaling?
We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop. That's obviously against the rules and obviously not ok and you've been flaming up a storm here.
In case anyone is worried about this, we ban accounts that abuse the site regardless of ideology. If this account were posting the same way but arguing for opposite positions, we'd ban it the same way.
Actually, the irony is how much all these sorts of account have in common with each other on both sides of the ideological divide. They all resemble one another far more than they do the bulk of the readership here, who respect the rules, come to HN out of intellectual interest, and would prefer not to swim in hellfire.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Then why not talk to him?
> We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological flamewar and ignoring our requests to stop.
You've never done that. You asked me to be more civil a few months ago and I obliged. I've never started ideological flamewars. Just corrected them.
> That's obviously against the rules and obviously not ok and you've been flaming up a storm here.
So it's okay to start a flamebait but not to respond to or correct flamebait?
> In case anyone is worried about this, we ban accounts that abuse the site regardless of ideology.
What ideology are you speaking of? You think I'm china bot?
> Actually, the irony is how much all these sorts of account have in common with each other on both sides of the ideological divide.
What ideological divide? You think I'm a republican and this guy is a democrat? Or vice versa? You are literally making shit up.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24621036
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25032052
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24864002
This is a massive problem. SoftBank is CCP money.
HR2513
Illicit Cash Act
Equitable Act
All 3 of these facilitate sketchy securities investments from offshore entities.
My operating investment thesis:
I bought and HODL'd TSLA at $362 with as much margin as was allowed with this thesis.
Musk is an intellectually dishonest figure, but it doesn't matter, money matters.
Every time the CCP pumps the US asset class, it forces other central banks to print more via pump and dump cycles.
Each cycle is worth a lot in terms of transferring wealth to the CCP.
This number can be trillions at some point.
TSLA has onshore assets in China.
I'll be closely monitoring digitization of RMB/Yuan as well as China's trade surplus, if the trade surplus drops by a lot, then the CCP's thirst for USD will go up.
From a security standpoint, I've been told that the maritime industry is rife with gaping security holes. Still reading into it though.
> Each cycle is worth a lot in terms of transferring wealth to the CCP.
I don't understand at all what you are saying. Which asset class is the CCP buying? Why are central banks forced to print more? How does this transfer wealth to CCP?
In a similar vain, there’s a reason why the RMB is not a major contender to the dollar yet. It’s more strategic to gain an increasing percentage of world trade and influence, then “flip the switch” and request/require/demand RMB over dollars. Look at bond yields in China, they’re every fixed income managers dream. They have a positive, meaningful yield and are very safe.
Straight from the office of Ministry of Truth.
Among them, Huawei - we all know - but This time Hikvision made the list as well. Frankly, I actually do support not buying Hikvision cameras or any other device that is cloud based that phones home your location and activity.
Read the order, it makes pretty clear points. Your conclusion could be made about any time period, if thats what you have already decided on, as if it can be a singular motivation.
When you reach a certain place in society you get to trade on material non-public information before the rest of the market, moving on.
This may affect supply chains for civilian supply chains, and then China's corops and government will have to make a choice: Keep contracts to make tons of consumer goods or continue to supply the military side.
Even though it's blindly obvious what their playbook would be if they could make their dreams come true?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_Warfare#External_...
but this has been a long standing problem. It's something Trump can do that might slow China growing their military presence. We are talking about a country with very restrictive freedom of speech laws and who reeducate certain ethnic minorities.
I wonder if this will affect civilian supply chains as well? Will some governments and their corporate counterparts be forced to decide if they want to supply consumer goods or build their military instead?
I'm sure China could eventually create shell companies to move some resources, but it would slow down military growth. It would also be something Biden would be foolish to try and undo, because it would give the impression of special interests in China. After the Swalwell allegations, it would provide a good check.
Speculation: people are paying a lot of attention to what's happening at the White House right now. From some of the comments, there's also some misunderstanding of when this happened, and may think it's something the administration is trying to get in under the wire in the last 10 days (even though that's not the case).
Stealth War: How China Took Over While America's Elite Slept
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
There's other great resources out there too. But watch out, the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one..
Who's saying that? The Biden-China things which seem to be being explored is a conspiracy theory, as in an unsubstantiated theory about an alleged conspiracy, but I don't think anyone is under the impression that the Chinese getting up to stuff is a conspiracy theory.
The New China Challenge Stems from Beijing’s Old Ambitions
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/new-china-challenge-ste...
China has made it a goal to subdue Taiwan by 2049, one hundred years anniversary of PRC, which is rejected by the current President of Taiwan.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/China-up-close/Taiwan...
And clearly China wants to do much more than incorporating Taiwan, given their more assertive foreign policies, both within the current international frameworks (United Nations, World Health Organization), and outside of those frameworks (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Belt and Road Initiative).
For a very very brief overview of some goals announced by China (dominate production of key technologies by 2025, build a world-class military by 2035, be a superpower by 2049), see a short summary in Section 3 of the Introduction of this proposal:
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/global-strategy-2021-an-alli...
Overall, the proposed strategy to counter China suggests working with other democracies to out-compete China in military and innovation, while cooperating with China on common interests (public health, climate change).
> the rabbit hole goes pretty deep on this one..
(In the rabbit hole right now. Eye opening. Would recommend.)
* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-18091107
* https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/2095326/opini...
* https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/china-is-very-li...
* https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2016/october/china...
* http://blogs.reuters.com/data-dive/2013/11/18/chinas-one-chi...
Another article supporting this statement, on Chinese demography [1][2]. You may find it interesting.
[1]: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/chinese-demography
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25558016
Personal take: As long as Xi is in power, China’s ambitions are unlikely to scale back (at least on the surface), for otherwise it would be his failures.
For example, after Xi set the goal to clear poverty in China by 2020, even after COVID, China did not give up on the goal, ignoring if achieving the goal on surface is sustainable:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/world/asia/china-poverty-...
is there any point to this, if the united states universities are allowing Chinese Students to study and research with absolut freedom, many of the Scientists were educated in American universities.
one of million titles, : Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases
if you do not want china to steal your things. block them in every level possible.
To the tune of trillions of dollars, the CCP is funding the tyrannical American military that invaded Iraq, and killed hundreds of thousand of innocent civilians.
Those curious about this could read more about this here, which documented Obama's unrestricted drone warfare[1]:
[1]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/unblinking-sta...
HN readers should take care to not associate themselves or their companies with these moral outrages.
Congress should pass a law banning all Chinese investments in US treasuries. Or perhaps Trump could do another Executive Order before his impeachment.