Let us Understand the Chinese - II

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member_19686
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

China has made obedience to the State a game
China has created a social tool which gives people a score for how good a citizen they are
Samuel Osborne Tuesday 22 December 2015

With a concept straight out of a cyberpunk dystopia, China has gamified obedience to the State.

China has created a social tool named Sesame Credit which gives people a score for how good a citizen they are.

The system measures how obediently citizens follow the party line, pulling data from social networks and online purchase histories.

As Extra Credits explains on YouTube: "If you post pictures of Tiananmen Square or share a link about the recent stock market collapse, your Sesame Credit goes down.

"Share a link from the state-sponsored news agency about how good the economy is doing and your score goes up."

Similarly, Sesame Credit can analyse data from online purchases.

"If you're making purchases the state deems valuable, like work shoes or local agricultural products, your score goes up.

"If you import anime from Japan though, down the score goes."


Most insidious of all, the app will have real world consequences. According to Extra Credits, high scores will grant users benefits: "Like making it easier to get the paperwork you need to travel or making it easier to get a loan."

Although the ratings are currently optional, the social tool will become mandatory by 2020.

There have even been rumours about implementing penalties for low scores: "Like slower internet speeds, or restricting jobs a low scoring person is allowed to hold."

The system could also become a powerful tool for social conditioning, as users could lose points for having friends with low obedience scores.

There has already been some evidence of Chinese citizens competing with one another to get high scores, posting their Sesame Credit scores on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, Quartz reports.

Earlier this year, the BBC reported the Chinese governmennt was building a "social credit" system to rate each citizen's trustworthiness.

A planning document from China's State Council explained the credit will "forge a public opinion environment that trust-keeping is glorious" and warned the "new system will reward those who report acts of breach of trust".

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 83841.html
Propaganda Games: Sesame Credit - The True Danger of Gamification - Extra Credits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI
JE Menon
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by JE Menon »

^^hacker's dream
member_19686
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

An old Chinese propaganda pamphlet produced in 1958 (start of Great Leap Forward) using Mao's famous boast as the title

Just a few years earlier in 1953 Sita Ram Goel wrote exposing commie propaganda:

CHINA IS RED WITH THE BLOOD OF PEASANTS

https://indianhistorybooks2.wordpress.c ... -peasants/
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by shiv »

I wonder if the Chinese suffer from a form of lack of self esteem just like indians
British schoolgirl entrepreneur, 16, earns £50,000 advising Chinese parents on English baby names - after hearing about children called Gandalf
A 16-year-old British schoolgirl has earned £48,000 giving Chinese babies English names, after hearing about children called Gandalf and Cinderella.

Beau Jessup from Edge, Gloucestershire, has so far suggested names for 221,000 Chinese babies in six months and her unusual business is booming.

She set up SpecialName.cn after spending time in China where she was asked repeatedly to suggest an English name by friends expecting their first child.

All Chinese babies are given a traditional Chinese name at birth, which is written in Chinese characters and used for all government documents.

But there has been a growing demand in the last 20 years to adopt an additional English name that can be read, pronounced and printed in English.

This would be for use on email and for study and business in the West, but these names were chosen at school by an English teacher or even by pupils.

Entrepreneur: Beau set up SpecialName.cn after spending time in China where she was asked repeatedly to suggest an English name by friends expecting their first child

Cheltenham Ladies College pupil Beau said: ‘When I went to China I kept being asked to name babies for my parents' friends.

‘They explained an English name is vital because you can't use a Chinese name on email or a university application to the UK. Your English name stays with you for life.

‘But I also heard lots of examples where people had chosen culturally inappropriate English names they'd heard from films or read online.

‘It made me realise there was an opportunity to help Chinese people get it right from the start.’

To solve the problem Beau developed Specialname to suggest culturally appropriate English names to prospective parents based on their ideals and aspirations for their child.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Atmavik »

^^ Its a common practice among Chinese immigrants in the west to have a Christian name(official) and a Chinese name. looks like it is spreading to the mainland as well.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Arjun »

X-post from Western Universalism thread:

Some enlightening stats relating to the Air China screwup...

"London is generally a safe place to travel, however precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Indians,Pakistanis and black people."


What Air China meant to say was precautions are needed when entering "deprived neighborhoods" which are generally associated with high rate of crime and poverty. And what do the latest stats say as to which UK communities are more likely to live in such "deprived neighborhoods" ? : How likely are ethnic minorities to live in deprived neighbourhoods?

Surprise, surprise - Chinese figure above the Indians in living in these hellholes !

So it would be more correct to say "precautions are needed when entering areas mainly populated by Chinese, Pakistanis and blacks"...of course it would still not make the statement politically correct, which is a whole different story.

The article was probably written up by some ignorant & jobless British Chinese....and based on official stats, Chinese in the UK do rank higher in joblessness than the Indians there :)
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by wig »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt ... ucky_hotel

the story of Gu and Bo Xilai, the murder of Heywood and how it all helped Xi Jinping the current leader.
a good read
Murder in the Lucky Holiday Hotel By Carrie Gracie .Five years ago, China's most charismatic politician as toppled from power. His disgrace allowed his great rival to dominate the political stage in a way unseen in China since the days of Chairman Mao. All this was made possible by a murder.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Rony »

Hong Kong Versus Shenzhen: Two Competing Visions of China's Future
One system favors economic growth at all costs, while the other yearns for freedom.

Hong Kong’s waning allure for ambitious mainland Chinese like Gu is symbolic of the shifting balance of power and opportunities between the neighboring cities. Where Hong Kong is a former colony whose historic role as a trading hub and gateway to China is fading, Shenzhen is young, hopeful and looks optimistically toward a future where it can help drive China’s push to dominate the next century through an innovative economy that sidesteps political freedoms.

For all the differences in outlook, the cities’ proximity and growth prospects means they are becoming intertwined regardless, as are the systems that govern them: The Communist Party is steadily eroding Hong Kong’s civil liberties, while also stepping up measures to prevent any subversive ideas from taking root in the mainland. It’s a source of tension that gets to the root of Hong Kong’s turmoil as the youth try desperately to hang onto freedoms promised to them when Britain handed the territory back to China more than 20 years ago.
Beijing clearly wishes Hong Kong would accept its place within China’s ambitious “Greater Bay Area” plan to more closely bind it to the mainland. But that’s anathema to many in what was once a shining outpost of wealth and free speech.

The people of Shenzhen have never known such rights, yet have helped their city to flourish as innovative and dynamic while firmly under the thumb of the Communist Party. Helped by local companies like telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co. and social messaging firm Tencent Holdings Ltd., Shenzhen’s economy grew 7.5% last year, matching or even edging past Hong Kong’s gross domestic product for the first time, depending on the measures used.

In many ways, the two cities represent competing visions of China’s destiny. Shenzhen has the centralized control, relentless efficiency and advanced manufacturing that lie at the root of President Xi Jinping’s concept of China’s future greatness. Hong Kong’s freedoms and advanced service sector, coupled with a laissez-faire capitalism⁠—and unpredictable politics⁠—hint at the type of liberalization that many western governments have long hoped Beijing would implement. It’s a contest that might appear to be going Shenzhen’s way, but which remains far from settled.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Philip »

Yes, we understand them very well.Arrogant SOBs who think they are the cat's whiskers and that all other human races are inferior.Asia's equivalent of Nazi racism.On one of the channels this morning, an eminent military expert quoted a Chinese saying that " there is no room on the mountain for two tigers".China wants India " to bend the knee" and acknowledge our fealty and subservience to it for evermore. It invaded and subjugated Tibet, the Uighurs are being ethnically cleansed and Han Chins replacing them on the ground as they're herded off into vast concentration camps that can hold millions.It has started attempts to appropriate Buddhism ( born in India!) to hoodwink Asian Buddhist nations, will choose its replacement for the Dalai Lama after he departs and is day-by-day actually acquiring control over Pakistan openly and brazenly.The perfidious bankrupt Pakis only underscore this reality by desperately rushing to Beijing whenever India scores points against it diplomatically and militarily.

Add to this the $60B trade deficit which demands, as the RSS and Swadeshi Jagran Manch have been saying, countermeasures by India.Unfortunately, the GOI is still being extra soft on China.A fitting counter would be to stop with immediate effect imports of all Chinese goods
until the accumulated trade deficit with China over the last 10 years is reduced to zero by China importing a rough equivalent of approx. $ 500 billion of Indian goods and manufactured products in one year! Such a move would kickstart the Indian economy like never before and see a massive increase in the Indian manufacturing sector at all levels!
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by UlanBatori »

Eleven tosses PM into Wuhan
Impressed. Perhaps this means the danger is over and it is now time for Foto-Ops? Or PM is considered expendable and assigned the garbage-bin seat at the Politburo Table.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Mukesh.Kumar »

UlanBatori wrote:Eleven tosses PM into Wuhan
Impressed. Perhaps this means the danger is over and it is now time for Foto-Ops? Or PM is considered expendable and assigned the garbage-bin seat at the Politburo Table.
Who knows UBji. Remember Gorbachev sending Boris Shcherbina to Chernobyl in 1984. Is there any evidence yet that the crisis is under control. I am hazarding a guess that the thing id getting bigger
UlanBatori
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by UlanBatori »

The bug is in the air, so it is a powerful symbolic statement for him to claim that he is there. How can anyone know, since "he" won't be seen outside the Andromeda Strain Costume, I wonder... just being nasty. Maybe he IS a brave man.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by mukkan »

The most important thing China appropriated from the United States is the one big idea that made America the world’s only superpower after the Soviet Union’s collapse. That idea is to drive fundamental R&D through the aggressive pursuit of superior weapons systems, and let the spinoffs trickle down to the civilian economy. China is like a two-stage rocket. The export-driven, cheap labor economy that turned it from an impoverished rural country into a prosperous urbanized giant after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms was the booster. China began to discard that booster ten years ago. The next stage is Huawei’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by artificial intelligence, robotics, the internet, and massive big data applications to supply-chain management, transportation, health care, and other fields.
China now spends about 2.2% of GDP on research and development, compared to 2.8% in the United States—but, given the relative sizes of our economies, their R&D spending in absolute terms is about the same as ours. A big difference is in the composition of spending. Most American R&D seeks incremental improvements in existing products—an upgraded laundry detergent or a less salty can of soup. China’s R&D, as the Pentagon explained in its 2019 assessment of China’s military capabilities, concentrates on dual-use—civilian and military—technologies.
Chinese universities have assembled a world-class scientific and engineering faculty. Four out of five doctoral degrees in computer science and electrical engineering in America are awarded to foreign students, of whom Chinese are the largest contingent.
China’s challenge is formidable. We are competing with 1.4 billion intelligent and industrious people. Chinese schoolchildren turn up at 7:30 a.m. and leave at 5:00 p.m. Ten million Chinese teenagers take the college entrance exams each year and prep 12 hours a day for two years to gain acceptance at a good university.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the- ... challenge/
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by sreerudra »

Ashok Sarraff wrote:http://chuanr.de/pallavi-aiyars-talk-opening-ceremony/#

CHindu's Pallavi Aiyer talks about her experience in China versus India. Among other things claims she has Muslim heritage.
This Link doesn't work. Also, is she Commie ?
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by sreerudra »

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indian- ... es-2234310

How much truth in this or its the Chinese spinning Indian prestitute wheel?
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Mukesh.Kumar »

sreerudra wrote:https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/indian- ... es-2234310

How much truth in this or its the Chinese spinning Indian prestitute wheel?
What do you think? Before bringing something from UndieTV I would request you to give it a moment's thought.
1. Misleading article. Jawans and then ITBP.
2. How can Indian army comment on ITBP
3. No names of sources.

Etc etc.

@ BRF we try to have an open eye and spot the truth. Rather than being a clearing house would be good if we are also able to have new members trying out their own hands in separating fiction from fact.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Rony »

Why downgrading English to boost China’s cultural confidence is a bad idea
Two proposals submitted to the National People’s Congress have sparked lively online debates, and both concern the role of English in China. One delegate, Yang Weiguo of Hunan, called for a cancellation of English translation at government press conferences, arguing that it was a way to promote Chinese culture and demonstrate China’s cultural confidence.

Another delegate, Tang Hailong of Beijing, who obviously adopted the same line of thinking as Mr Yang, proposed downgrading the importance of English as a school subject, so as to promote the dominance of Chinese as the country’s official language. Netizens oozing patriotism shouted their support, while others criticised the proposals as narrow-minded.

I am all for the promotion of Chinese culture and language, but I don’t understand why it can’t go hand in hand with learning English. Yet, I am not surprised by these proposals.

Last March, a heated debate about the relevance of English erupted after Hua Qianfang, a farmer turned writer, posted on Weibo that English is useless to most Chinese people and has “cost children their childhoods”. He also described keen students of English as “self-dwarfing slaves” to Western ideology.
For me, learning English has been life-changing. Born into a poor working-class family in Nanjing, I dreamt of becoming a writer. Sadly, when I turned 16, I was dragged out of school and put to work at a military factory that produced intercontinental missiles. There, I greased machine parts for a whole decade. As an escape route, I decided to teach myself English.

It was the early ’80s. “English fever” was just heating up after China began to reform and open up. Chinese people had a thirst for learning and the country needed the skills. It was much harder to teach oneself English back then. I borrowed a radio to follow a popular programme called New Concept English.

Once I started, I became fascinated by this language system so different from Chinese. I often found myself talking in English to myself or singing Carpenters’ songs. Some of my colleagues laughed at me, calling me “a toad who dreams of eating a swan’s meat”. But I didn’t care.

Now I am a social commentator and an author, writing books and articles for international publications in English. Without my effort in learning the language, I would have rusted away at the rocket factory. In a small way, my story demonstrates the transformative power of language.

Back in the 1980s, China was still very poor. English language ability gave jobseekers huge advantages. I was hoping to get a job as an interpreter with one of the foreign companies starting to set up shop in Nanjing. Nowadays, instead of a big plus, English language ability is often regarded as a basic skill, an indication of one’s overall quality.
China has invested hugely in English learning, making it part of compulsory education as it strives to internationalise its workforce and economy. Chinese people have also gone to great lengths to mastering the language. As a result, English proficiency among Chinese people has taken a “great leap forward” in the past decades, a reflection of both China’s economic growth and global prominence.

According to the latest edition of the EF English Proficiency Index, the world’s largest study that measures adult English proficiency among non-native speakers, China ranks 8th among Asian countries – not far behind South Korea, at No 6. Not surprisingly, Singapore tops the table.

It is followed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India. EF is an international education company specialising in language training. Minh N. Tran, EF senior director of research, told Forbes that there is a clear correlation between English proficiency and economic competitiveness at the national and individual levels for all Asian countries.

It made perfect sense to me. For all that it has achieved, should China stop trying to improve its English proficiency? Of course it shouldn’t. There are many ways a country can demonstrate its cultural confidence. Cancelling English translation at official press conferences isn’t one of them. In my view, it would only come across as culturally arrogant.

China’s rapid rise has unnerved the West and led to fear. The Covid-19 outbreak has only aggravated such fear. While some misgivings are justified, others are generated by ignorance. It is time for China to behave graciously and open up more channels for cultural understanding.

In today’s globalised world, a knowledge of languages is paramount in facilitating communication. One of my self-appointed missions in life is to serve as a cultural bridge between China and the outside world, in my small way, of course, explaining where China is coming from and why certain events happened. Any bicultural person can be such a bridge. We need more of them, not fewer.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Vadivel »

China suspends debt repayment for 77 developing countries

BEIJING: China has suspended debt repayment for 77 developing countries as part of its efforts to help underprivileged nations in the fight against Covid-19.

However, it did not reveal the nations that would be benefitting from this move.

Chinese Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ma Zhaoxu, made the announcement at a press conference where the country also issued a white paper on its war against the coronavirus.

The white paper, titled "Fighting Covid-19: China in Action", was issued by the nation's State Council Information Office on Sunday (June 7).

It recorded the country's efforts in combating against the pandemic while sharing its experience with the world.

Ma revealed that the country had so far provided assistance to over 150 nations in various forms, including dispatching their medical experts out.

"When we were at our most difficult time, more than 170 world leaders, over 50 heads of international organisations and 300-over political parties sent their regards and support to us.

"A total of 77 nations and 12 international organisations donated items for us to combat the virus while people from all over the world showed their support for China in various forms.

"We will not forget this precious friendship," he said.

Ma also refuted claims that China's relationship with other countries were affected by the negative sentiments brought by the pandemic.

https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/as ... -countries
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by arshyam »

x-posted from the border thread in the mil forum.
RaviB wrote:I have been following the discussion closely and I think it would be useful to see the Chinese side of this.

What are they up to in Ladakh? What are they fighting for? Why now?

[This became rather long so I'll add the rest in a second post] PART 1

My post goes a bit in the understanding China direction, but I'll tie it back to the current situation.

The basis for my understanding is that I studied Chinese and China quite some time back. I lived there for a bit and worked as an interpreter and consultant with Chinese coming to India for a few years. However the last time I had a proper visit to China was for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2009. My Chinese since then has gotten quite rusty because I had to learn another language, shifted to a completely different field, etc. Since then I have just kept myself sporadically informed and had some contact with China experts and Chinese scholars. I however have no idea about Indian defense beyond what I have read on BRF over the past 12 years and don't know much about weapon systems, etc. So please keep in mind that I'm no expert, I'm just an average guy trying to contribute my knowledge. Also what I write about the Chinese perspective might be offensive, please remember these are not my views, I just want to help you understand how the Chinese see us.

The best article on how the Chinese see the current situation is China’s Strategic Assessment of the Ladakh Clash by Yun Sun.

How the Chinese see us Indians

1. Inferior: There is absolutely no question about this. If anyone talks about how they consider India as the origin of Buddhism, or ancient civilisation, then it's garbage. China doesn't give a damn about all that. There might be a reluctant admission that India has an ancient history but for them that history ended with the arrival of the British. The cultural revolution also pretty much cut off the contact of China with their own heritage, so they don't value culture too highly. Japan makes them insecure, USA makes them very insecure but India is inferior and not really to be taken seriously. Also India is poor and dirty.

2. Arrogant: This is a very bad thing in Chinese eyes. Humility is a virtue, arrogance is a sin. Arrogance for them means that India does not know its place. This started from the time of Nehru who tried to pretend that he was a leader of Asia. All the stuff about the UN seat for China and all that, that was China's right, Nehru was doing his duty, that's all. That's why they like Pakistan. It is servile, flatters the leaders and knows its place. (This is not a new thing, even declassified cables from the 1950s show the Pakistanis were being chamchas and undermining India).

3. Tools of powerful countries The first time the Chinese had contact with Indians in modern times was with Sikh policemen in service of the British. This shapes their perception of Indians till today. I'll quote some academic research by Isabella Jackson about this:
[Popular histories] usually include a reference to the slang
term by which the Sikhs were known among Chinese, hongtou asan,
which has been translated variously as ‘red-headed monkeys’, ‘red-
headed rascals’, or ‘turbaned number threes’. All reflect their status
in Chinese eyes as the vicious lackeys of their British masters. Hongtou
is a reference to the red turbans that formed part of the police uniform
for the Sikhs, while asan is thought to derive from the Sikhs’ third-
class social position in Shanghai, or from a transliteration of either the
British exclamation ‘I say’ or ‘ah, sir’, as Shanghai’s Chinese addressed
the Sikhs. Popular racist perceptions of Sikhs [see them as] ‘black devils’ (heigui), the Indian troops of the
British in nineteenth-century China,
PDF of the article

All current social media discussion of the India-China conflict uses the term hongtou 紅頭 (red turbans) or asan 阿三 (number threes) or heigui 黑鬼 (black devils) to describe us. Most of their racist caricatures also show the Indian Army as composed of Sikhs. Indians oppressed the Chinese for the British, later they served the interest of the Soviets and now they want to serve the interests of the USA. They thought the entire idea of NAM was a self-serving lie by Nehru to fool Asian countries while serving the interests of white masters. That's pretty much what they think of India today. "Strategic autonomy" for them is again a fake front that India puts up (in fear of China) while it secretly serves the interests of the USA against China.

4. Duplicitous They have always thought of Indians in this way, partly self-projection. Partly because they see the adversary in their own image. The idea of honor is completely alien to Chinese thought. Which means all this talk of India about honor or keeping its word must be a lie. Which means they are hiding something else. Sometimes, China is smart enough to see through India (and see whatever they wanted to see). Being honest is not something anyone places too much value on. In China it is every man for himself. They wouldn't think twice about cheating anyone and corruption (also within the PLA) is expected and only punished as part of a package deal, if someone also commits another crime like disloyalty to the party.

5. Divided Since we are a democracy, all our internal differences are all out there for the entire world to see. The Chinese differences are not visible, not even to the Chinese themselves. So they can comment about Racism in USA without bothering to give a second thought to their prison camps (which anyway only have the second class Uyghurs). They see India divided between rich and poor, castes and naturally all sorts of political parties.

These are all the comfortable opinions China holds but there are some things that make them uneasy or slightly challenge their picture of India. The space programme makes them very insecure (not just them actually). The nuclear programme makes them angry, India has no right to do such things. The CCP also fears to some extent that a successful democracy might give the people the wrong ideas. Hong Kong is an ideological threat. Taiwan too, that's why they love sharing videos of fist-fights in the Taiwanese Parliament. The Indian IT thing made them uncomfortable earlier but they then decided Indians were good at doing stupid repetitive stuff.

How the Chinese see their neighbours
Simply put as vassals. There is a periphery which needs to be periodically pacified. China is the centre of the world, if any of the small countries at its periphery gets uppity then it must periodically be taught a lesson. A peaceful periphery is especially important when the Kingdom is facing challenges. Xinjiang quite literally means "new frontier". Tibet is also part of the same strategy. Having a frontier area outside the main heartland is part of the Chinese tradition (also inner Mongolia, outer Mongolia is another story). These regions usually faced benign neglect and occasional severe repression and they were just kept around as an insulation of the heartland, extracting resources and all was secondary. So we have the heartland, directly ruled barbarians (Tibet, Xinjiang), and tributaries (Laos, Mongolia but also uppity ones like Vietnam) outside that. The tributaries should send gifts to the emperor and recognise his authority and they'll be left alone.

See concluding Part 2 in a later post
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by arshyam »

RaviB wrote:Part 2 and conclusion of previous post

How China sees itself
  • China is not a Communist country: It is a country ruled by a communist party, that's the extent of its communism. In some ways it is like Post-Soviet republics of the USSR with a hyper-capitalist, robber baron, crony capitalist oligarchy.
  • It is a Han nation. All other minorities get to wear regional costumes like dressed up monkeys when the attend a few congresses in Beijing, but they are second class. This is seen in their repression of Tibetans and Uyghurs. Partly, they want to cilvilise (or make Han) these barbarians practicing strange religions, and stuck in the past.
  • China is a modern civilised country (almost western). Think Meiji restoration Japan, think Singapore. See the CCP functionaries wearing western suits, with CCP badges.
  • China is on its way to restoring its place as the centre of the world. The USA is an obstacle it will need to overcome for this.
  • The CCP has the mandate of heaven. All Chinese emperors needed to have this, otherwise someone with the mandate would usurp their place. CCP is the current dynasty and Xi is the current emperor (for life). Everything becomes a lot clearer when China is seen in its imperial tradition.
  • China is orderly and stable. At the moment. The typical condition of China over the past 200 years has been of disorder. The Taiping rebellion, civil war, cultural revolution, etc. So finally the CCP has brought order. Order is way more important than "freedom". Freedom is something they know from Hollywood, not really for China but maybe its worth visiting Disneyworld to see what it's like.
  • China is corrupt to the core and the CCP is the heart of this corruption. This is something most people find terrible and all the protests and opposition are inevitably protests against corrupt petty functionaries. But to get rid of corruption, you have to get rid of the CCP and if you get rid of the CCP, China wouldn't function. At the moment corruption is not as ostentatious as before. People are keeping their heads down because Xi was collecting heads to stabilise his rule. Since everyone is corrupt, everyone was afraid of his anti-corruption drive.
  • China is a merchant empire. The CCP to sustain its corruption needs heavy trade. If the size of the pie shrinks, there will be infighting. Which will weaken its hold.
  • CCP has two enemies The Chinese People and the USA. The fall of the USSR has been the biggest nightmare of the CCP, and both these factors are thought to have played a role. The CCP spends a very substantial amount on internal security, according to some accounts as much as on external security.
  • China has 3 classes: Peasants (the majority, who nowadays are usually migrant workers); the nouveau riche and the rulers CCP. All three are afraid of each other. The newly rich are happy, obedient and scared to lose what they have, send their children to study abroad and hope to migrate to USA; the worker/peasants are the ones who cause disturbances and are in terrible shape. The rulers are insanely rich, insanely corrupt and insanely paranoid, everyone has at least 2 different passports for their children, apart from the chinese one.
What is China doing in Ladakh?

Based on what I have written so far I think this is a mission to subdue the periphery. The army is on an expedition to pacify the frontier and punish the uppity kingdom on the periphery, India. Show them who's the boss and then return to the heartland.

This is also about warning India not to join an alliance with the USA. For us, this might sound ridiculous but when you read how the Chinese see us, it makes perfect sense that we will not ally ourselves with the USA after receiving this warning. Ideas like humiliation being bad for relations are alien to them (humility is a virtue, they are simply showing India its place). That we might have self-respect or might actually care about strategic autonomy or be protecting our own interests are simply incomprehensible and completely out of sync with how they see us.

Several people have tried to think of the current situation in terms of military strategy. That makes absolutely no sense. It is almost certainly not about protecting the Aksai Chin highway. Firstly the PLA is not too bright in terms of military tactics, for example having 200 trucks inside a gorge seems foolish even to a civilian like me. Secondly, the empire never expects trouble or attack inside its borders. I think maybe one or two junior officers in the PLA might entertain the thought of an Indian armored attack and prepare a report on that but I think that's inconceivable for the majority. Also practically, China has enough heavy lift capability and construction skills to have a replacement highway running very quickly.

For those suggesting more fantastic ideas like a shortcut to PoK over the Karakoram pass. The Karakoram Pass is the one point on the boundary that there is no conflict about. Secondly, the Karakoram Highway has nothing to do with the Karakoram Pass. The geography of the area makes it impossible to build a road. Thirdly even the KKH is more or less a gesture for Pakistan, nothing seriously economic about it. it is far away from the economic and population heartland of China. Pakistan is a model tributary state, so it is rewarded with favors like the CPEC. From at least 2013, I have been telling anyone who would listen that it's a big joke. Some Chinese companies will get to build stuff and make a lot of money, which will be shared through the hierarchy but trade with Pakistan over the KKH makes utterly, absolutely no sense.

The current conflict is for the average Chinese, out there in Timbuktu. Tibet is already like Antarctica inhabited by the savages for the majority of them. And then there is some fight with India, a country they have heard of. It's quite an exotic place, people dance all the time, they've seen Bollywood movies. That's why I think the idea of domestic messaging doesn't quite fly. Hong Kong is easy to crush, also sends out a message about the supremacy of the CCP and the futility of democracy protests, but Tibet, as far away as it can get? With a third rate country like India? They have a vague idea that it's full of poor people who dance but is there really glory in defeating their army? That's only to be expected surely. This has also created a headache for the CCP, did high-tech Han warriors actually get slaughtered by dirty Red Turbans? [This is currently a very popular question on Chinese social media, which is being asked indirectly in many different ways].


Lessons for India
  • Conflict with China is inevitable. So we must make sure we find the right time and place for it. It will not be a total war. Total war is too unpredictable and might cut into the CCPs earnings.
  • Localised conflict is feasible and manageable Tibet is not worth much to the CCP. Of course a dynasty never allows its size to be reduced, but if Lhasa or Amdo or any city in Tibet or Xinjiang were destroyed, the CCP wouldn't even blink. But the CCP will at no costs see even the smallest threat to the heartland (south-west China). So escalation won't proceed beyond a certain step on the ladder
  • Any war will be about temporary deterrence and not permanent victory. When we give them a bloody nose, they'll leave us alone for 30 years. But then we'll have to fight them again
  • Diplomacy is about delay and obfuscation, not resolution. Talking helps pass the time until its time for military conflict. Any promises aren't worth the toilet paper they are written on. A loophole will be found as and when necessary.
  • It's not Sun Tzu (Sun Zi) who's relevant to Chinese military strategy but Weiqi. I find it a bit ridiculous because The Art of War is quite elliptical and can be interpreted as one wishes. I haven't read it myself and I'm convinced most people who quote it haven't either. What Chinese Generals were also mesmerised by was the Gulf War 1. That and RMA have very much shaped their understanding of how the next war (with USA) will be fought.
  • They will be hopeless at mountain warfare From everything I read, their strategy seems to be one of overwhelming the enemy. Send 2000 soldiers, 200 tanks, 500 trucks and 20 bulldozers to scare 200 enemy soldiers. This strategy might work on Tiananmen Square (as it indeed did) but not in the mountains. I don't know anything about weapons systems but I have a suspicion networked warfare is not really the best way to fight in the mountains. Massed forces are also probably not the best idea in Ladakh (perhaps with the exception of Depsang)
  • This might make me sound like a Pakistani, but the Chinese have nothing to even remotely match the Indian soldier's spirit. I just tried to think of how many of my Chinese acquaintances might be willing to die for their country and I honestly can't think of a single one. In case of India obviously I have family, friends, neighbors, one doesn't need more than 5 seconds to think of 10 people. The Chinese spirit comes from Han superiority and fear of their officers, especially the political officers. This means they are ripe for desertion, and if there are non-Han soldiers they can probably be used to create disorder within their armies. The han superiority also makes them afraid of barbarians. They are always scared by people with heavy beards and scary mustaches.
  • their lack of democracy means they are very brittle against information warfare. I had posted earlier how Chinese social media was relying on the messaging of the new Baba Banaras twitter account. All their news came from Indian media. If we can spread some fake videos or pics of mutilated Chinese soldiers, that will not enrage but scare them. It will perfectly fit their image of savage barbarians and the modern Chinese population is all up for CGI warfare but not to see skulls crushed with rocks.
  • The planning is done by Generals, approved by Beijing, and then flows down to the soldiers. This system lacks innovation and probably won't be very flexible on the ground. Though it may very well lead to brilliant strategy in the case of experienced generals, the tactics will probably be shoddy and predictable.
  • We should try to understand them and how they see us and take advantage of it. We must also be willing to adapt to their working style, which might mean giving up on values like honour and truth. We always feel betrayed by them because they act differently to our expectations. When we understand their worldview, we will be the ones taking advantage of them.
  • What CCP does not want is a widespread front and protracted warfare. Traditionally such pacification exercises (Ladakh, but also Xinjiang and Tibet) were conducted in order to free the empire for more important work (like confronting the USA). We will know we have won this round when General Zhao is recalled to Beijing.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by arshyam »

Mods, can we make the above two posts by RaviB sir part of the first post? They should be required reading for everyone on BRF.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Deans »

I have a couple of friends who've been doing business with China, for a decade. They pretty much echo Ravi's very informative posts.

From my book collection I can recommend the following (you can download for free on pdfdrive.com)
1. The hundred year marathon (China's 100 year plan to overtake the US)
2. Crouching tiger (What China's Militarism means)
3. Red Flag (Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy)
4. China's great wall of Debt
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by arshyam »

x-posting my own post from the border thread. This book, China in Ten Words is also good to understand their inner workings, written by a Chinese author who had grown up during the Cultural Revolution.
arshyam wrote:Thank you for taking the time and sharing these insights, RaviB-ji. Knowing what the Chinese think is a very important aspect of dealing with them, so any insights that cross the language barrier is always welcome. Please keep them coming!
RaviB wrote:4. Duplicitous They have always thought of Indians in this way, partly self-projection. Partly because they see the adversary in their own image. The idea of honor is completely alien to Chinese thought. Which means all this talk of India about honor or keeping its word must be a lie. Which means they are hiding something else. Sometimes, China is smart enough to see through India (and see whatever they wanted to see). Being honest is not something anyone places too much value on. In China it is every man for himself. They wouldn't think twice about cheating anyone and corruption (also within the PLA) is expected and only punished as part of a package deal, if someone also commits another crime like disloyalty to the party.
I can totally relate to this. I recently read a book called "China in Ten Words" by Yu Hua, where he takes ten different aspects of Chinese society and describes it as he sees it. He is somewhat brutally honest, and having grown up during the 70s, his insights into the Cultural Revolution were fascinating to read. Two of his later chapters dealt with duplicity and honesty. He called them "Copycat" and "Bamboozle". Basically, he was saying that in Chinese society, copying something outright and undercutting that (we see that in the way their companies have built themselves up) and cheating someone was also considered completely normal. In fact, he mentions his choice of the relatively harmless word bamboozle was deliberate, since cheating was considered to be harmless as long as no one got caught. Since there was no moral sanction against it, everyone indulged in it. After Deng's reforms, the extent of "bamboozling" only increased.

The overall sense I got was of a society that has a self-image rooted in its own isolationism and lacking a moral compass, perhaps due to that. The communists are merely the current overlords directing Chinese society, but the essential character of their society is unchanged.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Rony »

Xiang Lanxin, "On Wolf Warrior Diplomacy"

https://www.readingthechinadream.com/xi ... omacy.html
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by pandyan »

arshyam wrote:Mods, can we make the above two posts by RaviB sir part of the first post? They should be required reading for everyone on BRF.
Yes, both RaviB saar's post and Suraj saar's post on how to make this the most-expensive war for china requires widespread dissemination. Both posts are article quality and needs to be published. I learned a lot.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by sudarshan »

Suraj san, if you don't mind, could you repost your earlier posts about the Kinmen-Matsu islands? If you don't have the time, I could dig those up and repost them here, with your permission.

It would help mitigate some of the dhoti-shivering WRT China.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by pandyan »

x-post from Re: Neutering & Defanging Chinese Threat
Suraj wrote:I have no problem with diplomatic moves. However, they're effectively moves that can be stepped up, paused or reversed as dictated by policy needs, and there will be corresponding shrill noises about our border and territorial aspects.

The elimination of the Chinese trade surplus on the other hand, is an act of unilateral capability on our part. They don't have enough they can retaliate against us with. In the economy thread, there are posters collecting information on what the breakdown in import content from China is. We import billions worth of... fertilizer. And chemicals. Rounding those to zero costs us nothing - it gains us industrial capability. It costs China ~$20 billion in lost earnings and a material excess they need to dump somewhere else. Idle capacity and carrying cost of production is expensive. Any businessman knows this instinctively.

The most effective expression of power is a series of actions to which the other side has no cards to retaliate with. Trade deficits usually are a bad thing, but a deliberate process of eliminating every component of that deficit is an act of economic power that the other side cannot do anything about. The Chinese geopolitical power is built on the back of their manufacturing engine, and we - a long way poorer than US and EU - are the third biggest source of trade surplus to China right now.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by pandyan »

https://youtu.be/gHFW8GQRcYE?t=1120
Transcript (watch from 18:40 onwards
Chinese Communist Party has a saying when it comes to their warfare psychological warfare operations and other forms of subversion "strangle you with your own systems".

in other words observing how different countries operate what is controversial within their systems how does their system function how can we use those systems to twist things around to cause chaos to
mess things up to use it against them. You say you believe in free speech will have protests in your own backyard calling you out.

You say you believe in free press well we'll start up state-run
media in your country and when we use those state-run media to lie to your
population to spread our propaganda that's what they do.

You believe in free markets how about we bring state-run companies that can sell below cost and put your companies out of business and
take over your industries that's what they're doing right strangle you with your own systems and what is controversial in the United States what
is most controversial racism this race narrative they know they can use it
they've been doing it for a very long time there are different groups for
example committee of 100 in the US where every time a Chinese spy is arrested they call it racism because they know it's what were sensitive to the Chinese military has a doctrine on this the
three Warfare's doctrine psychological warfare, media warfare and legal warfare. this is a publicly adopted into their
military doctrine this is part of their military system
now what is what are these psychological warfare is not necessarily lying to you psychological warfare is altering how
you interpret information and so when you see a virus coming out of China and people say this virus came out of China if you call it the Chinese virus they wanted they want to use this and twist
it around and say it is racist.

If you talk about the origin of this virus, what is media warfare?

Media warfare is the manipulation or control of outlets of information not just news outlets but say social media online platforms the
ability to speak openly anything that would allow people to communicate would be a target of media warfare
...
The Epoch Times actually received leaked documents from inside
Wuhan from the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party saying they had hired 1,600 new operatives to go and sweep the internet and clear information it said they use the 50-cent army hired
internet trolls who go on the comments sections of websites like YouTube like Facebook like Twitter like the different Chinese social media platforms and defend the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.

That they were recruiting these people it said they had commissioned articles. Hundreds of articles from influencers individuals who are known and respected whose voices would have a social impact perceived
credibility that is the nature of distant formation.

We had a leaked document showing this and it just so happens
recently Taiwan they did an analysis they found 70%.
70% of online articles about these things were being done by
Chinese agents
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by pandyan »

x-post from border thread
Suraj wrote:Let's see here. The PM of India pushes a signature manufacturing effort to bring and keep production within India. Five years after it was created, it's basically not getting anywhere, because the MSME industry has been gutted by a decade of Chinese imports coming in cheaply. And the businesses are too hooked on this cheap supply of Chinese imports. This was warned about many years ago.

The reality of politics is this - sometimes a war is good. It galvanizes a people who otherwise are too selfishly interested in their cheap imported Chinese goods to voluntarily boycott it. The most effective way to get them to change their ways is to enable a war to happen with an entity with whom there's been no bloody fighting in a generation.

If I were Modi, I would sit back in some satisfaction at the situation - a war like this offers the political space to squeeze the Chinese import channel out completely. The Chinese make $60 BILLION a year in trade surplus. That's 4 MMRCAs a year worth of sarees, fireworks, cheap toys, and unreliable hardware being imported from there. Cut that off, and the costs to them are far more than any war they've ever fought. Sure they can harm our exports, but we only export $15 billion to them, and they import $75 billion to us. They'll run out of stuff to ban a long way before us.

The current situation is an amazing opportunity to broadly dismantle the pernicious base of Chinese imports to India - and to do it on social media through widespread dissemination . Already, my family members are on Whatsapp asking what non-Chinese phone instead of Oppo/Lenovo they can use, and these are people who have never asked something like this before.

I see this as opportunity staring at us in the face - right down to us as individuals. The PM is in a great place to actually push for the Indian opium addiction to Chinese goods to be removed. Replacing it with our own production only benefits us, and it harms the Chinese greatly. What's more, people themselves can broadly push an economic boycott over SM .

Blame on the PM ? If I were sitting in his position, I'd be satisfied - I now have the popular anger to harness to squeeze the endless flow of Chinese goods into India and the flow of Indian wealth out. I would focus on channeling that anger into actually imposing an effective economic boycott. When the Chinese see a most of their trade surplus evaporate, they'll realize that their stupidity cost them 10-11 figure dollar losses.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Suraj »

sudarshan wrote:Suraj san, if you don't mind, could you repost your earlier posts about the Kinmen-Matsu islands? If you don't have the time, I could dig those up and repost them here, with your permission.

It would help mitigate some of the dhoti-shivering WRT China.
here it is

Before anyone reads that series of posts please do this self quiz:
Kinmen and Matsu are
1. Two islands halfway between China and Taiwan held by China
2. Two islands halfway between them held by Taiwan
3. Two islands near Taiwan held by China
4. Two islands next to China held by Taiwan
5. A famous Chinese noodle soup
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by sreerudra »

pandyan wrote:x-post from border thread
Suraj wrote:Let's see here. The PM of India pushes a signature manufacturing effort to bring and keep production within India. Five years after it was created, it's basically not getting anywhere, because the MSME industry has been gutted by a decade of Chinese imports coming in cheaply. And the businesses are too hooked on this cheap supply of Chinese imports. This was warned about many years ago.

The reality of politics is this - sometimes a war is good. It galvanizes a people who otherwise are too selfishly interested in their cheap imported Chinese goods to voluntarily boycott it. The most effective way to get them to change their ways is to enable a war to happen with an entity with whom there's been no bloody fighting in a generation.

If I were Modi, I would sit back in some satisfaction at the situation - a war like this offers the political space to squeeze the Chinese import channel out completely. The Chinese make $60 BILLION a year in trade surplus. That's 4 MMRCAs a year worth of sarees, fireworks, cheap toys, and unreliable hardware being imported from there. Cut that off, and the costs to them are far more than any war they've ever fought. Sure they can harm our exports, but we only export $15 billion to them, and they import $75 billion to us. They'll run out of stuff to ban a long way before us.

The current situation is an amazing opportunity to broadly dismantle the pernicious base of Chinese imports to India - and to do it on social media through widespread dissemination . Already, my family members are on Whatsapp asking what non-Chinese phone instead of Oppo/Lenovo they can use, and these are people who have never asked something like this before.

I see this as opportunity staring at us in the face - right down to us as individuals. The PM is in a great place to actually push for the Indian opium addiction to Chinese goods to be removed. Replacing it with our own production only benefits us, and it harms the Chinese greatly. What's more, people themselves can broadly push an economic boycott over SM .

Blame on the PM ? If I were sitting in his position, I'd be satisfied - I now have the popular anger to harness to squeeze the endless flow of Chinese goods into India and the flow of Indian wealth out. I would focus on channeling that anger into actually imposing an effective economic boycott. When the Chinese see a most of their trade surplus evaporate, they'll realize that their stupidity cost them 10-11 figure dollar losses.
Well said. I love to declare emergency to shush traitors like MMS giving stupid advice too..
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by sudarshan »

Suraj wrote: here it is

Before anyone reads that series of posts please do this self quiz:
Kinmen and Matsu are
1. Two islands halfway between China and Taiwan held by China
2. Two islands halfway between them held by Taiwan
3. Two islands near Taiwan held by China
4. Two islands next to China held by Taiwan
5. A famous Chinese noodle soup
Thanks! Would urge members here (who haven't seen this before) to go through these few posts. Not to get complacent, but to get some perspective on Chinese military capability. You might be surprised, I certainly was very very surprised when I first learned about this.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Rony »

X-post

Guys, Check this out

Chinese military forum. In Chinese. Google translate to English. If any one wants to understand what they are thinking about the current situation.

Indian = Asan (derogatory term)

Below are some the India related threads. These are automatic translations

The possibility of going to war is rising! ! !
https://lt.cjdby.net/thread-2629644-1-1.html

India must fight, but not now
https://lt.cjdby.net/thread-2629636-1-1.html

What I think is, will we fight back if India retaliates ?
https://lt.cjdby.net/thread-2629707-1-1.html

It can be believed that the current Indian ruling authorities are basically extremely chaotic after the 615 World War
https://lt.cjdby.net/thread-2629716-1-1.html


There are many threads like this. And also whole lot of information on other chinese defense things.
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by RaviB »

China has NEVER betrayed us

I keep hearing people talking about how China stabbed us in the back and betrayed us. This is completely wrong.

Let me start with a Native American tale.
Girl and the Snake

A young girl walking along a mountain path to her grandmother's house heard a rustle at her feet. Looking down, she saw a snake, but before she could react, the snake spoke to her.

"I am about to die," he said. "It's too cold for me up here, and I am freezing. There is no food in these mountains, and I am starving. Please put me under your coat and take me with you."

"No," the girl replied. "I know your kind. You are a rattlesnake. And if I pick you up, you will bite me and your bite is poisonous."

"No, no," the snake said. "If you help me, you will be my best friend. I will treat you differently."

The young girl sat down on a rock for a moment to rest and think things over. She looked at the beautiful markings on the snake and she had to admit he was the most beautiful snake she had ever seen.

Suddenly, she said, "I believe you. I will save you. All living things deserve to be treated with kindness."

She then reached over, put the snake gently under her coat and continued toward her grandmother's house.

Within a moment, she felt a sharp pain in her side. The snake had bitten her!

"How could you do this to me?" she cried. "You promised that you would not bite me, and I trusted you!"

"You knew what I was when you picked me up," he hissed as he slithered away.
Did the snake betray the girl? No! He was true to his nature. [Note: I am by no means calling the Chinese snakes. The sort of thing is childish and pointless]

When we talk about the Chinese betraying us or backstabbing us, whose fault is it really? Our delusions are not their problems.
They act as they must, if we do not understand them and think that they will reciprocate our kindness, then frankly it's our problem.

Then there is this Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam ("the world is one family") nonsense. People don't even know the context in which it was said. It was used in a fable in the Hitopadesha. There a cat pretends to be a learned saint, gives a long speech, concluding by saying "vasudhaiva kutumbakam". The vulture believes him, befriends him and ends up dead.

I am all for spouting "vasudhaiva kutumbakam" like the cat, but not for stupidly starting to believe it ourselves like the vulture.

Countries have interests, which change over time. Countries have allies who also change as necessary. We have rivals or enemies with whom our interests are irreconcilable. Isn't it obvious where China belongs?

Every time we misread them, should be an opportunity to learn and improve our understanding of them. If we survive the misreading. The costs of misreading them can be heavy as we saw in 1962, as the girl and the vulture understood to their cost.

Also imagining that the "chemistry" between leaders can actually mean anything is plain wrong. Xi doesn't have any friends in China, why would he make one in Mammalapuram? I hope that all this was simply a lot of diplomatic theater and nobody actually started believing this garbage. Our PM has one duty, and that is to safeguard the interests of the Indian People. If lying to the face of the Chinese and offering friendship to buy time for war is necessary, then of course he must do it.

But a conflict is inevitable. China thinks it is number two and wants to be numbah one. It needs to ensure number 3,4,5 stay out of the picture while it takes on the current number one. To understand this is fundamental to avoiding "betrayal". If we need to sign a treaty of friendship and peace with China and hug them and be best friends with them, then obviously we must do it immediately, so we can buy more time to prepare for the inevitable conflict. But to actually start believing that peace comes due to desiring peace is just setting ourselves up for the next big disappointment.

Moral of the story:
  • States do not have the luxury of having morality
  • Be careful whom you believe and never start drinking your own kool-aid
  • Somebody whose interests are at fundamental cross-purposes with ours can never be our ally, we can postpone conflict but it is inevitable.
  • Actions speak louder than words.
  • We need more autists designing our foreign policy
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Cyrano »

We need more autists designing our foreign policy
:rotfl: Good one !
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Suraj »

xpost from China threat thread:
RaviB wrote:Cross posted from Border thread

Relations with Taiwan

I see several people have proposed recognising Taiwan in retaliation to the current situation.

This would be absurd because:

1. The ROC (Taiwan) has the same claims on Tibet as the PRC. So it does nothing for resolving the Indo-Tibetan boundary

2. Chinese have a philosophy of "suck up - kick down". It's good for us if Taiwan stays below us, sucking up. There's no point in giving them equal status.

3. The possibility of recognition at some future date is a very good carrot to dangle, there's no point in handing it to Taiwan because we are angry at China. Taiwan has done nothing to earn it. Not to mention that even USA doesn't recognise them

4. We already have good relations with Taiwan. They have a de facto embassy (called Taipei Economic Council I think) in Delhi. We should definitely reciprocate a bit more but they already do a lot for us.

5. We should deepen our relations with them, most importantly in the economic sphere. Automatic visas for Taiwanese businessmen, while delaying or denying visas for Chinese businessmen will go a long way towards addressing the economic imbalance. A lot of business relies on personal contact, and personal presence and visas are an excellent way of making it more difficult for the Chinese to do business. If the Chinese retaliate by doing the same to our businessmen, then it's a plus. Most Indian businessmen are not there for any other reason than extracting profit for themselves and importing cheap rubbish into India. Our nation has no duty to serve the import of golden plastic lamps into India at the cost of more important interests.

6. The Taiwanese invested in China when it had nothing, no infrastructure, no educated workers, nothing. They are used to getting things to work in less than ideal conditions. They will have less hangups about getting things going in India.

7. The Taiwanese are heavily invested in the PRC, and would definitely like to move out some of that investment. We should do everything possible to help them do that. China doesn't have much leverage on Taiwan, other than military threats. Plus it needs those Taiwanese investments. Plus just as India wouldn't forbid Arunachal Pradesh to have economic activities in India, PRC cannot prohibit economic exchanges with Taiwan without tying itself into knots

8. Exchanging intelligence. They have very good intelligence on PRC. The HUMINT is exceptional, SIGINT is obviously an Uncle thing. They were the first ones to learn of the Wuhan Virus and slam their doors shut. Their paranoia about China and of course their experience with previous outbreaks is what helped them move so quickly on the CV. We have some very basic intelligence exchange, but we need to deepen this much further (maybe in exchange for automatic business visas or relaxed FDI rules?).
Your sequence of posts have been incredibly cogent and have explained China to many here. Though familiar with a lot of this myself (mostly from past friendships and relationships spanning the Taiwan Strait :) ) I've learned a lot too.

However, I have a point to make here regarding this argument:
1. The ROC (Taiwan) has the same claims on Tibet as the PRC. So it does nothing for resolving the Indo-Tibetan boundary
This has been quoted here before. Always by mainlanders who support PRC. This argument takes advantage of a nuance of the statement that people aren't quite familiar with. I'm more familiar with Taiwanese than mainlanders, so I got to learn about their view of this. My own sources are multiple 60-80 year ex ROCN/ROCA retirees in the bay area; I'm not their age though, just half that old.

Fundamentally there are two differently entities here and it's best to view them as such. Let's start with geographical entities: Mainland China and Taiwan island. Taiwan has three major cities TaiPei, written by mainland Romanization as TaiBei - north Taiwan . Same Bei as Bei Jing (north capital). Then there's Taichung, written by mainland Romanization as TaiZhong - central Taiwan. Same Zhong as ZhongHua (middle Kingdom, what they call themselves), and TaiNan or south Taiwan, same as NanJing which means South Capital (it was a former dynasty capital of mainland).

Now there are the governmental entities, and these owe themselves entirely to the Chinese Civil War era. There's PRC, which rules the mainland and asserts Taiwan is part of it. There's ROC, which was the former governmental entity of the mainland, that moved over and ran a government in exile in Taiwan, while desiring to rule the mainland as well. The names of the political parties running PRC and ROC were respectively Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party).

The above distinction is clear when you consider that the CCP that runs PRC, always asserts that Taiwan is a renegade entity. It never says that the ROC is, since that makes no sense.

Fast forward to present day - CCP still runs the mainland as PRC. Kuomintang is no longer the one party ruler of Taiwan's ROC governemnt. In fact Kuomintang is no longer in power in Taiwan. Kuomintang no longer even espouses ROC, which is deeply unpopular within the younger generation in Taiwan. In Taiwan, the older generation are Kuomintang supporters far more so than the younger ones. I have been to a Bay Area KMT fundraiser as someone's significant other at the time. And I have been face to face with ex Taiwan president Ma Ying Jeou as well as seen Tsai Ing Wen the current President, in person at a gathering, though not interacted with either of them. Interesting experience. They probably asked their minders who's the Indian spy.

So it may be true on paper that 'Taiwan (ROC)' had the same territorial claims as PRC. But here's the reality. There is no Taiwan (ROC). It hasn't existed for a long time. There's a Taiwan. There's a desire of one of Taiwan's parties (KMT) to re-establish ROC. That is the past fantasy of a collection of 80+ year old people. The younger Taiwanese generation is very prickly about the use of the term Chinese or China. They don't like using ROC, and they're vehemently against 'Chinese Taipei' at the Olympics or other sport events - they assert they are just Taiwan.

So there are wheels within wheels of this topic to consider.
3. The possibility of recognition at some future date is a very good carrot to dangle, there's no point in handing it to Taiwan because we are angry at China. Taiwan has done nothing to earn it. Not to mention that even USA doesn't recognise them
The other part of this is that they don't want it. If New Delhi stated tomorrow morning that they're giving Taiwan full diplomatic recognition, Beijing and Taipei would be equally horrified, for different reasons. Beijing would be furious. Taipei would be frightened about the huge foreign policy headache and anger from Beijing directed at them.

The hard reality is that the Taiwanese don't know what they want. They 'don't want the present', but they're quite literally by their own admission not keen on demanding full recognition. The most direct answer I've gotten from them (both younger and older folks) is that they are chicken. They know the source of their wealth and prosperity, and unlike Pakistanis, aren't stupid enough to want to shoot themselves in the foot when they have a good thing going. They prefer to evolve an independent identity and are aware they themselves don't quite know what they want/are - they have an internal inter-generational conflict between really old folks with ROC fantasies, somewhat younger folks who are pro-KMT, and much younger folks who want nothing to do with KMT.
RaviB
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by RaviB »

Thank you Suraj ji, I wasn't aware of the ROC-Taiwan distinction. This is very informative.
nandakumar
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by nandakumar »

Thank you Suraj. That was crisp and evocative at the same time.
Suraj
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Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Suraj »

Thanks. The mental map to use here to view the political stratification of Taiwan society is:
70/80+ year old gen: KMT folks who want a reunited China as ROC. Akhand Bharat types who reminisce about their ancestral homes in Rawalpindi and Peshawar, because they were all mainland born and fled to Taiwan with Chiang's forces.
50+ gen: mildly pro-KMT because they grew up in a one-party dictatorship run by KMT under Chiang and his son. Don't particularly care much for ROC, but KMT is what they know from their youth. Congress-pasand older folks in India, but unlike INC, the KMT dictatorship made Taiwan prosperous so they have a more legitimate reason to feel positive nostalgia.
20-40 gen: See themselves as Taiwan and Taiwanese. Not interested in ROC and really hate 'Chinese Taipei'. Tsai's party is effectively their platform - the Taiwanese Nationalist party, and not Chinese Nationalist Party. More like centre-right BJP inclined self-aware younger gen in India.

But like I said, they don't know collectively agree on what they want because they have these three generations arguing about what the want or are. But 'Taiwan (ROC)' as any sort of entity with a territorial claim is just a rhetorical argument PRC folks make to dissuade Indians - 'hey now, you know the Taiwanese want the same borders too right ? So don't cosy up to them'. That argument hasn't had any meaning since about 1971.
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