Understanding New China After the 19th and 20th Congresses

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chetak
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by chetak »

ramana wrote:No I havent read that but will do so. I have Mackinder original paper.

All American thinking is Xian based. Even the founding.
Military invokes Xian god during formal ceremonies.
Truly Templar ethos.


Geissler, Suzanne; Mahan, Alfred Thayer

God and sea power : the influence of religion on Alfred Thayer Mahan


It appears that the hans are trying to upgrade themselves to a two ocean country by setting up in gwadar to project power into the arabian sea. This seems to go hand in hand with their grabbing of SLs hambanthota port as well as setting up ports in the maldives waters. They have also secured port visitation rights from the beedis as well

At this very heart, India sits like a ginormous and permanently moored aircraft carrier, with almost limitless potential to cause damage as well as interdict and restrict the SLOCs at will.

All this is pure mahan and both the amerikis as well as the hans are acutely aware of this predicament.

Additionally, no one expected India to weaponize her long range nuclear strike capabilities so quickly or develop a robust MIRVed second strike capacity with a multidimensional MAD strategy.

And like you said, it's a Russian gift.
ramana
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

That idea of India as a large carrier was made by VADM.M. K. Roy in a Naval Inst Proceedings.
One Dutch scholar Kemmenade, wrote how even in 1990s, PRC wanted a way to counter the Pacific Ocean dominance by US and to develop Western China.
Belt and Road Initiative is China's land island strategy.
What I forgot to mention was in the long millennia it was India that was the richest land in that world island.
ArjunPandit
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ArjunPandit »

Ramana sir,
1. thanks for the education. That was really helpful in giving a good historical context and also how to avoid generalisations. Sometimes throwing stones on trees gives fruits along with the stones. Your post is a keeper.
2. Had no intention of poking hole in the argument, if it was viewed that ways I apologize. I agree to your point so no point discussing here.
ramana
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

No. Keep throwing pebbles not stones
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by Singha »

I am about to read the Sea Power book by james stavridis over the holidays. Former nato c in c

He too reiterates the IO as the most strategic ocean in world politics now
chetak
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by chetak »

The unhealthy obsession of the MEA baboon(s) with the "solution" to siachen despite the IA having gone to great lengths to establish a presence on the ridge and hold that position at a huge cost against numerous efforts by the pakis to dislodge the IA from there and constantly and consistently describing the issue as "low hanging" fruit or agreeing with jehadis who insist on describing it as such is not only suspicious but also inexplicable.

It is also telling that the FMs are never the movers or even the originators of these often dubious proposals. So what exactly are the motive or even the drivers of these MEA guys and how is it that they are so obsessed and so consistent in their approach, year after year and govt after govt?? despite the IA also maintaining the very opposite POV and being equally, if not more, consistent in holding on to their position??.

"Low hanging", BTW, was never the terminology used by the IA or the IN or even the MOD. This term is only used both by the pakis as well as the MEA.

The ominous and all pervading presence of china in all this punjabi pappi jhappi lovefest is like the vengeful ghost in a haunted house.

Also, none of the MEA baboon(s) is willing to talk about what else may be on the paki menu after this particularly tasty salami slice has been consumed and how they plan to address the paki-han ogre's rapacious and never ending appetite for Indian blood.


though dated, this review of shyam saran's book is revealing
Book review 'How India Sees the World': Insights on stagecraft from a wise diplomat

NEENA GOPAL
Published Sep 29, 2017.

The former diplomat’s insight couldn’t come at a better time as India shifts inexorably into the US ambit.




As India’s foreign secretary and later, the prime minister’s special envoy, Shyam Saran worked closely with the US, which was clearly unused to dealing with a country that was neither an ally nor an adversary but aspired to equality.

As India’s foreign secretary and later, the prime minister’s special envoy, Shyam Saran worked closely with the US, which was clearly unused to dealing with a country that was neither an ally nor an adversary but aspired to equality.

Former US envoy to India Robert Blackwill says of Shyam Saran’s book, How India Sees the World, ‘If you can only read one book on how India should conduct itself as world order fractures, read this one’. As PM Narendra Modi puts in place a far more muscular foreign policy, Mr Saran’s insight into the three countries that present India with its biggest foreign policy challenges, ‘unpredictable’ America as much as China and its South Asia proxy, Pakistan, is instructive on how India’s past triumphs and failures continually intrude into its present...

The singular flaw in former ambassador Shyam Saran’s book How India Sees the World, that has otherwise received high praise from the political and diplomatic class and academia as an “indispensable frame of reference for the country’s current external challenges,” is the unfortunate media hype that has unnecessarily picked out one aspect — blaming then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for India’s handling of Siachen — while ignoring the book’s singularly well-crafted posits on the far bigger challenge of checkmating China.



As the acknowledged China hand states, in a near perfect de-construct of the Chinese mindset: “There is a certain subtlety to the Chinese use of deception, which escapes most Indians.”

Saran could have been talking about Pakistan, where civilian Islamabad continually uses our Achilles heel of shared language and culture to throw dust in India’s eyes. Saran writes about how times had changed when he took over as foreign secretary and how that remained so, under his successor, Shiv Shankar Menon.

“The prevailing sentiment that Pakistan had to be isolated and that there should be no engagement unless and until Pakistan abandoned its use of cross-border terrorism as an instrument of state policy,” had been watered down by the Manmohan Singh government, despite the Lahore, Kargil and Agra fiascos under the preceding Atal Behari Vajpayee’s government.

Indeed, lost in the din of the ill-informed blame-game on Siachen that has erupted today, over keeping the Indian Army out of the loop on Siachen, is that the Indian Army was, in fact, fully on board, both during the drafting of the agreement and when it came to finally nixing the proposal on withdrawing from the commanding heights, that it had occupied in the pre-emptive strike, Operation Meghdoot in 1984.

In recalling the run up to the aborted Siachen deal that he had worked on, Mr Saran writes how Pakistan, “in the early 1980s, had begun to issue permits for international mountaineering expeditions to the Siachen Glacier area, thereby asserting its jurisdiction over it” even as “the entire glaciated area comprising the Siachen Glacier and the Saltoro Ridge, covering an area of over 2300 square kilometres, came to be shown as under Pakistani control,” under most international maps. The Indian army changed the status quo with Operation Meghdoot.

How India Sees The World: Kautilya to the 21st Century; by Shyam Saran; Juggernaut, Rs 599.

Saran had crafted the draft agreement on Siachen in 2006 on Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs instructions that he “obtain a consensus on it from all the key stakeholders in our own system”.

“Many rounds of consultations, both at the senior bureaucratic and ministerial levels in the ministries of defence, home and finance. The army chief J.J. Singh and the intelligence chiefs were also brought on board.

“The technical details of the agreement, including the points and timing of redeployment, the phases in which it would be implemented and the structure of the monitoring mechanism, were actually worked out at the army headquarters by the director-general of military operations...

When the CCS meeting was held on the eve of the defence secretary–level talks, the then national security advisor (NSA) M.K. Narayanan launched into a bitter offensive against the proposal, saying that Pakistan could not be trusted, that there would be political and public opposition to any such initiative and that India’s military position in the northern sector visà- vis both Pakistan and China would be compromised.

That the diplomat in Saran saw this as a window of opportunity to make history was clear. But a strategic and military imperative took precedence over the diplomatic hand-holding of untrustworthy Pakistan that had been embarked on by the preceding Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP government and was sustained by Manmohan Singh without factoring in the unchanging hold of the military-jihadists who run Pakistan.

PM Vajpayee’s Pakistan outreach was made under the mistaken belief that under civilian PM Nawaz Sharif, the military would not play dirty, post-Lahore. And second, when they did play dirty with the Kargil infraction, and army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf who was behind Kargil, subsequently took over as “Chief Executive”, India still embarked on the Agra summit, believing that they were finally dealing with the real power centre, failing to factor in, that President Musharraf’s Mohajir antecedents would always be held against him unless he toed the deep state’s line.

The former diplomat’s insight couldn’t come at a better time as India shifts inexorably into the US ambit.

As India’s foreign secretary and later, the prime minister’s special envoy, he worked closely with the US, which was clearly unused to dealing with a country that was neither an ally nor an adversary but aspired to equality. Saran spent three years, networking with “multiple centres of power and influence in Washington” to forge the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement that once signed, marked as he writes, a dramatic end to several decades of estrangement.

As this new India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi adopts a singularly muscular and assertive foreign policy and moves inexorably into the US ambit and stares at the far greater challenge of checkmating the much bigger power of China and its South Asian proxy, Pakistan, the candid insights and penetrating analyses that the former foreign secretary has brought to bear in his debut treatise couldn’t have been timed more perfectly.

Saran’s telling of the Siachen fiasco must be seen in that context, and perhaps what he has left unsaid — the unspoken rivalry that divides Indian officialdom, the faultlines that run through that puts diplomats like Saran on one side and officials like the former national security adviser, M.K. Narayanan on the other, while elected politicians play referee.

Given his inside knowledge of the policy deliberations that went on behind closed doors — and which he has freely shared — Saran’s rendering of events when he was chief negotiator on the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement with an “unpredictable America,” his handling of “adversarial” Pakistan and the fascinating critique on the rise of Chinese power are as insightful as they are thought-provoking.

On Narasimha Rao

“In my view, Narasimha Rao represented the Kautilyan mind more than any other Indian leader in recent times. He could be cold and calculating in handling the many challenges he had to confront but had an occasional streak of humour that took one by surprise. In one of his reflective moods, he turned to me and asked, ‘Do you know the attributes of a successful leader in India?’ Before I could respond to this unexpected query, he answered it himself: ‘To be a successful leader in India you must be ruthless but also ascetic’.”

Excerpt

When Nawaz backed down
It was during my time as joint secretary at the PMO from 1991 to 1992 that I became more closely involved with our Pakistan policy. I had succeeded Ronen Sen at the PMO when Chandra Shekhar was the prime minister. The former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had been killed in a terrorist attack on May 21, 1991, and his funeral in Delhi was a few days later. Several heads of state and government leaders came to pay their respects, among them the Pakistani prime minister, then a much younger Nawaz Sharif. Chandra Shekhar hosted a private lunch for him at 7 Race Course Road, which was followed by a one-to-one meeting, which I covered as a notetaker. A crisis had been building up on the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, where a large number of Pakistanis were gathering, threatening to cross over to the Indian side to “unite divided Kashmir” through “people power”.

Nawaz Sharif tried to argue that the Pakistani government, despite its best efforts, may not be able to stop the groups from crossing the LoC. He said he expected restraint on the Indian side. Chandra Shekhar said it was the responsibility of Pakistan to prevent any crossing of the LoC from its side. As prime minister of India, he would have no option but to order his security forces to shoot anyone trespassing on Indian soil.

This would be a violent act against unarmed people and would be condemned across the world, warned Nawaz. Chandra Shekhar said it was his responsibility to handle the fallout, but he wanted the Pakistani prime minister to be under no doubt that if one person crossed, one would be killed, and if a hundred crossed, a hundred would be killed. Nawaz hastily dropped the subject and moved on to less contentious issues. Over the next few days, Pakistani security forces moved decisively to prevent the gathering groups from crossing the LoC and soon they melted away.

China obfuscation in maps
Two instances illustrate how India’s lack of familiarity with Chinese strategic culture created a misplaced sense of assurance. During the early 1950s, Nehru took up with Zhou Enlai the matter of Chinese maps showing large parts of Indian territory as part of China. Zhou Enlai explained that they were old Kuomintang maps which had not been reviewed and revised. He did not acknowledge that they were wrong. Yet the impression created was that China accepted the boundary as drawn on Indian maps.

The other misunderstanding was about the Chinese position on Kashmir. Some months before the 1962 border war, secretary general in the MEA, R.K. Nehru, met Zhou in Beijing. Nehru drew Zhou’s attention to reports that China was leaning towards the Pakistani position that Jammu and Kashmir was disputed territory. He reminded the Chinese premier that on an earlier occasion, when asked if China recognized Indian sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir, he had replied, rhetorically, “Has China ever said that it did not?” Now Zhou turned this same formulation on its head and asked Nehru, “Has China ever said that it did recognise Indian sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir?”

In both instances, the Indian side did not press the Chinese to convey categorical and unambiguous assurances. If the Chinese had demurred, as they might have, we would have at least been better prepared to handle the subsequent problems we had with them.

excerpts from the review of the same book by another newspaper.

The disdain of this has been shyam saran for any other POV is typical of the entitled culture in which MEA is used to operating since independence.
During the book launch on Wednesday, General (Retd) J.J.Singh, who was also in the audience, asked Mr. Saran whether it would have been possible, in fact, to “trust Pakistan”, and ensure Pakistani troops wouldn’t return to occupy positions in Siachen. “In matters of international diplomacy, it is a convergence of interests rather than trust that counts,” Mr. Saran replied.

The book also records what Mr. Saran calls a “missed opportunity” to solve the Sir Creek dispute in Kutch, with the solution crafted by the Navy to divide the creek between India and Pakistan according to the “equidistance” principle. When asked by Mr. Menon whether the opportunities to resolve the long-standing issues with Pakistan still existed, Mr. Saran said, “Opportunities are perishable. When they aren’t seized, they don’t return.”
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by kit »

Gone unchecked the US would have to listen to Chinese diktats in half a decade when the latter trumps the former as the premier economic power .
Last year, the Chinese Navy became the world’s largest, with more warships and submarines than the United States, and it continues to build new ships at a stunning rate. Though the American fleet remains superior qualitatively, it is spread much thinner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/worl ... cific.html
chola
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015n

Post by chola »

kit wrote:Gone unchecked the US would have to listen to Chinese diktats in half a decade when the latter trumps the former as the premier economic power .
Last year, the Chinese Navy became the world’s largest, with more warships and submarines than the United States, and it continues to build new ships at a stunning rate. Though the American fleet remains superior qualitatively, it is spread much thinner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/worl ... cific.html
It was only a matter of time before the US checked. American levers over chini’s modernization are simply too powerful. What happen to ZTE, a global MNC brought to its knees by Amreeki embargo, is a parable for Cheen as a whole. They are scrambling to roll back tariffs on American products even as the Americans kept their tariffs on chini ones. Complete capitulation by the lizard.

This is the reason why:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/20 ... CKUMGdOmEc
these trends do not necessarily mean that China is closing itself off from the world. In fact, there are five reasons why an increasingly autarchic China is unlikely.

For starters, China remains dependent on foreign technology, with half of its technology imports coming from just three countries — the U.S. (27 percent), Japan (17 percent), and Germany (11 percent) — between 2011 and 2016. More to the point, these numbers have barely budged over the past 20 years, despite China’s efforts to boost innovation at home.

Second, were China to close itself off, it would damage its neighbors’ economic prospects, thus destabilizing its own immediate region. For example, according to a recent OECD analysis, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea could lose 0.5 to 1.5 percent of GDP each as a result of reduced U.S.-China trade. This, in turn, would set back China’s ambitions to be the region’s trade anchor.
South Korea and Singapore also provides Cheen with technology for modernization.

So not only are the Chinis dependent on Amreeki technology and trade, it can’t even turn inward to insulate itself without devastating its own regional economy (the Manchurian candidates of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and even Japan to an extent) that it needs to grow and modernize.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »



Not quite sure which is the best thread to post it, but here is something I stumbled upon yesterday. Do check out this video, not for the accidents per se but for a rare glimpse into the Chinese society - drivers deliberately running over policemen, driving away with metal barriers. There's even a video of a car driver deliberately chasing and banging into a two wheeler!
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »



And then there is this one. Bus driver misses woman's stop. She starts hitting him. Bus goes down a bridge into the Yangtse River, killing everyone on board.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by yensoy »

At this point in time, the question to ask is whether the world has a problem with Communist China (i.e. the one run by the CCP, communist only in name), or there is a problem with China as a civilizational country - a problem which will continue even if the Party is miraculously replaced by a democratic form of governance.

Is the Chinese nation itself a menace, or is it particularly so because of the way the Party is able to single-mindedly focus its powerful resources - people, land and everything on & under it - towards their vision of the future with geo-political, geo-economic, geo-strategic and geo-military primacy?

Again, if miraculously the Party gives way to a democracy, it will be a couple of decades before the mindset - dyed by decades of thought control - changes. Would a new democratic China be good partner to the world like Japan or Germany, or would their world view not be too different from Eleven's?

Because, in theory, if China democraticizes and opens itself up more to the world, it can potentially outdo the US even in areas of the US' leadership such as education and thereby leading edge research.
chola
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by chola »

^^^ If we are Chanakyan instead of Gandhian then we would never want Cheen to democratize because it would make it many multiples wealthier than it is now. Think 1.4B x the per capita income of Hong Kong or Taiwan.

The weight of numbers would make them problematic to the West or anyone else currently on top. It would also be problematic for anyone else competing with them.

We will present a similar problem to the goras once we reach the size of Cheen today.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by Prasad »

yensoy wrote:At this point in time, the question to ask is whether the world has a problem with Communist China (i.e. the one run by the CCP, communist only in name), or there is a problem with China as a civilizational country - a problem which will continue even if the Party is miraculously replaced by a democratic form of governance.

Is the Chinese nation itself a menace, or is it particularly so because of the way the Party is able to single-mindedly focus its powerful resources - people, land and everything on & under it - towards their vision of the future with geo-political, geo-economic, geo-strategic and geo-military primacy?

Again, if miraculously the Party gives way to a democracy, it will be a couple of decades before the mindset - dyed by decades of thought control - changes. Would a new democratic China be good partner to the world like Japan or Germany, or would their world view not be too different from Eleven's?

Because, in theory, if China democraticizes and opens itself up more to the world, it can potentially outdo the US even in areas of the US' leadership such as education and thereby leading edge research.
Interesting question.
China is a massive, very old civilisation. Forget the commies. She has been bloodied by colonialism too but to a much lower extent than us. Even while our Biharis were shipped around the world as slave labor and made to grow opium instead of food, the Brits and oiros were scheming to gain entry into China while the emperor was still Chinese. If they'd had even an iota of brains they would have realised the enormous possibility of dominating the world if they'd teamed up with us. They are acting like idiots but a lot of their reasonings are sound. Take a look at that Ashley Tellis article on mrca/amca and all the American suggestions on MIC 2025. Same to same Xerox copies - "don't build your own, buy ours". That's why even though we should be wary of the Chinese and keep powder dry xv we should also be wary of being the West's gungadin against the Chinese. Neither is our friend but both are adversaries. One of them, especially the west ending up on top comprehensively is entirely against our short, medium and long term interests. Until we sort ourselves out and start firing on all cylinders, we should not find ourselves in a position of having to manage/scale back our progress to please the current no 1 whoever it may be like the Chinese are having to do now (thanks to their own idiocy).
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by chetak »

kit wrote:Gone unchecked the US would have to listen to Chinese diktats in half a decade when the latter trumps the former as the premier economic power .
Last year, the Chinese Navy became the world’s largest, with more warships and submarines than the United States, and it continues to build new ships at a stunning rate. Though the American fleet remains superior qualitatively, it is spread much thinner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/worl ... cific.html
quantity over quality is not going to cut much ice.

The hans sorely lack the soft power to obtain easy access to logistics and port facilities.

Push comes to shove, the hans will be told to keep their military traffic out of a great majority of commercial ports and take their military business elsewhere.
chetak
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by chetak »

yensoy wrote:At this point in time, the question to ask is whether the world has a problem with Communist China (i.e. the one run by the CCP, communist only in name), or there is a problem with China as a civilizational country - a problem which will continue even if the Party is miraculously replaced by a democratic form of governance.

Is the Chinese nation itself a menace, or is it particularly so because of the way the Party is able to single-mindedly focus its powerful resources - people, land and everything on & under it - towards their vision of the future with geo-political, geo-economic, geo-strategic and geo-military primacy?

Again, if miraculously the Party gives way to a democracy, it will be a couple of decades before the mindset - dyed by decades of thought control - changes. Would a new democratic China be good partner to the world like Japan or Germany, or would their world view not be too different from Eleven's?

Because, in theory, if China democraticizes and opens itself up more to the world, it can potentially outdo the US even in areas of the US' leadership such as education and thereby leading edge research.


The han population is, both historically and in a civilizational sense, well used to a supreme authority figure like the emperor, oppression and exploitation by nobles and regional satraps and the peasantry has, more often than not, remained docile and subdued.

china is currently a core military fist cloaked in a velvety capitalist glove and wrapped overall in an authoritarian communist mantle.

Its the very same, ancient and age old cheeni wine in a new 20-21st century bottle in a new avatar. Nothing has changed.

Each component as practiced by china is a misfit in itself but they have been forcibly cobbled together to give the impression of a solid and flourishing concern. There are tremendous pulls and pushes by each of the disparate components and there are huge social as well as civilizational stresses that have been generated by gradual exposure to the world at large, cheni migrants to other countries as well as the internet, limited in access though it may be.

If cheen democratizes in the true sense of the word, in the short and medium term, it economy will tank before it picks up again may many decades later, if at all.

Efficiently running democracy needs decades of practice. Without this chaotic initial phase, the struggle to the finding of a natural equilibrium, nothing will work and anarchy takes over.

venezuela is a case in point as are many naturally rich african states.

With no central authority in charge, EJs and islamists, just two malevolent forces as examples, will move in and wreak economic and social havoc. There are also very many others eagerly waiting in the wings.
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by chola »

^^^ Not worth the risk of democratizing them. Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, if not Japan also, are practically the same race. Culturally too, from chopticks to literature (at least historically with SoKo and Japan.) So chances are under democracy they will thrive just like their slanty-eyed brethren. Best to keep them communist and not take chances.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by hnair »

kancha wrote:There's even a video of a car driver deliberately chasing and banging into a two wheeler!
That car driver hitting the two-wheeler is psychotic and needs help!

Even with normal folks, there is something about PRC trained drivers, that are odd and scary. Two decades ago, I remember waiting outside a DMV in khanland, waiting for someone to finish her tests. A furlined mainlander lady (from the way she spoke over phone later) drove a lexus to the spot where she is supposed to onboard the DMV tester. The DMV tester gent got in shotgun. Our lady does pedal-to-metal when he asked her to drive and the car shot forward and crashed to a stop against a Brinks armored truck, **sideways**. The truck had a paint scratch, but the lexus had its lights smashed and bumper crumpled. Lady reverses and decides to go ahead with test. Tester motions her to stop and walked off shaking his head. She is like "but car ok, can take test now?" :lol:

The Brinks dude who was returning to his vehicle and saw the entire thing was LMAO along with moi. She got out the phone and started talking furious mandarin etc, obviously saying "if this was china..."

Sometimes I feel NRI folks visiting India saying RTO is corrupt as hell has not looked into PRC's licensing mechanism. I have a friend who took a driving test in cheen, where her husband was teaching for sometime. Need to check on her about how the system is :-?
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by Austin »

Is war between China and the US inevitable? | Graham Allison

kit
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by kit »

chetak wrote:
kit wrote:Gone unchecked the US would have to listen to Chinese diktats in half a decade when the latter trumps the former as the premier economic power .
Last year, the Chinese Navy became the world’s largest, with more warships and submarines than the United States, and it continues to build new ships at a stunning rate. Though the American fleet remains superior qualitatively, it is spread much thinner.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/worl ... cific.html
quantity over quality is not going to cut much ice.

The hans sorely lack the soft power to obtain easy access to logistics and port facilities.

Push comes to shove, the hans will be told to keep their military traffic out of a great majority of commercial ports and take their military business elsewhere.

The Chinese are building up their logistics and expeditionary forces to enforce their investments all around their globe.. i suppose if a country defaults / does not meet "obligations" the han soldiers will show up at their door :mrgreen:
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by kit »

Austin wrote:Is war between China and the US inevitable? | Graham Allison


It will ..definitely at some point .. the western nations are not quite good at taking orders from "inferior" Asian countries! .. every major country in Asia is dependent on US military protection/hardware to some extent. The Hans simply stole what they wanted and looks like showing the middle finger to them.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »

hnair wrote:
kancha wrote:There's even a video of a car driver deliberately chasing and banging into a two wheeler!
That car driver hitting the two-wheeler is psychotic and needs help!
Indeed. But if you think that is a one off event, you'd be mistaken.
Came across this one as well. Now I myself grew up in Delhi, so I know a thing or two about road rage. But this level of rage - including deliberate running over of fellow human beings - is something beyond me. Just look at the guy driving the white car at the 4:40 mark. He comes back atleast FIVE times just to ensure that the other guy is dead. Thankfully, that guy lives.
Then there are the numerous incidents of using your car to keep ramming the other person's car for even a minor scraping on the road.
Unbelievable!
A truly messed up society
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Re: PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

Post by chetak »

kit wrote:
chetak wrote:
quantity over quality is not going to cut much ice.

The hans sorely lack the soft power to obtain easy access to logistics and port facilities.

Push comes to shove, the hans will be told to keep their military traffic out of a great majority of commercial ports and take their military business elsewhere.

The Chinese are building up their logistics and expeditionary forces to enforce their investments all around their globe.. i suppose if a country defaults / does not meet "obligations" the han soldiers will show up at their door :mrgreen:

The days of gunboat diplomacy are long gone.

If what you say was true, the hans would have overrun the maldives at the very first instance.

⚓⚓⚓
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by JayS »

kancha wrote: Just look at the guy driving the white car at the 4:40 mark. He comes back atleast FIVE times just to ensure that the other guy is dead. Thankfully, that guy lives.
This is truly barbaric. This is not normal human behavior. There used to be posts some time back on internet and videos showing Chinese drivers making sure they kill the person if someone comes under their car accidentally by repeatedly driving over them. I remember to have seen couple of videos. The reason being told was that in China if you injure someone you have to pay for all hospital expenses and support him for life in case of permanent disability while one gets away relatively "cheaply" if the person dies in the accident. Don't know how much truth in it. But the videos couldn't have been fake at lease.

I remember to have read another article trying to explain psych of older Chinese generation, especially those who have seen the Mao days. Being sensitive to rules and safety regulation and being careful is apparently looked down for being a p****.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »

JayS wrote:
kancha wrote: Just look at the guy driving the white car at the 4:40 mark. He comes back atleast FIVE times just to ensure that the other guy is dead. Thankfully, that guy lives.
This is truly barbaric. This is not normal human behavior. There used to be posts some time back on internet and videos showing Chinese drivers making sure they kill the person if someone comes under their car accidentally by repeatedly driving over them. I remember to have seen couple of videos. The reason being told was that in China if you injure someone you have to pay for all hospital expenses and support him for life in case of permanent disability while one gets away relatively "cheaply" if the person dies in the accident. Don't know how much truth in it. But the videos couldn't have been fake at lease.
That indeed seems to be the case. The guy in this video talks in some details about it. But what is most chilling is the three examples he cites (2:40 onwards). How in the world can someone be that insensitive to human life is beyond me. Do hear him speak.

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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/29/opinion/china-rise-series-declining-economy.html
I thought about The Economist story while reading a deeply reported and thought-provoking series in The Times about another country of the future: China. The phrase “rise of China” has now become so commonplace that we treat it more as a fact of nature than as a prediction of a very familiar sort — one made erroneously about the Soviet Union in the 1950s and ’60s; about Japan in the ’70s and ’80s; and about the European Union in the ’90s and ’00s.
Tyrannies do not work in the long run. But they do know how to make people work in the short term.

Yet even with the advantages of scale and force, China isn’t working. In 2014, a year in which Beijing posted an official growth rate of 7.3 percent (as compared to 2.6 percent in the U.S.) China lost $324 billion to capital flight, according to a UBS estimate. In 2015, the figure more than doubled, to $676 billion, according to the Institute of International Finance. In 2016: $725 billion.
Maybe it’s also because the picture China presents the world about its economic strengths is misleading. China’s economy has made its strides atop a pile of public and private debt now $34 trillion high. Beijing claimed 6.9 percent growth in 2017, but Chinese statistics are next to worthless — artifacts of propaganda instead of productivity :mrgreen: . The rise of China has also been the rise of Chinese make-believe.
Will China’s current leadership accept the possibility of their own decline so philosophically, after having convinced themselves of their rapid rise to primacy? Nobody should bet on it. A wounded tiger is rarely a placid one.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

NYT under Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wu Dunn were at forefront of touting China as a rising power and all should kowtow to Middle Kingdom.
So for NYT to acknowledge Chinese stats are unreal is a big come down.
The rise of China has also been the rise of Chinese make-believe.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

Up! As China- US trade talks over tariffs are reaching a Friday deadline.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by tandav »

kancha wrote:
hnair wrote:
That car driver hitting the two-wheeler is psychotic and needs help!
Indeed. But if you think that is a one off event, you'd be mistaken.
Came across this one as well. Now I myself grew up in Delhi, so I know a thing or two about road rage. But this level of rage - including deliberate running over of fellow human beings - is something beyond me. Just look at the guy driving the white car at the 4:40 mark. He comes back atleast FIVE times just to ensure that the other guy is dead. Thankfully, that guy lives.
Then there are the numerous incidents of using your car to keep ramming the other person's car for even a minor scraping on the road.
Unbelievable!
A truly messed up society
Caution all here to be careful about all such case, in a country as large as China that is inundated with security cameras/car cams / headcams etc there is a far higher probability of capturing shocking footage. Such shocking things happen everywhere, In China they are more readily recorded and made available on social media like WeChat etc.

More importantly we can see that public infrastructure, people, and quality of life is far far superior to India and not very different from what I have seen in NYC and other metro areas of the USA
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

Kancha There is the other China thread for such posts.
This is mainly to discuss Xi JinPing and his New China policy.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by kancha »

ramana wrote:Kancha There is the other China thread for such posts.
This is mainly to discuss Xi JinPing and his New China policy.
Noted. Thanks.
My bad!
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

No big deal
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

Folks Xi JinPing is slated to visit India in October-November time frame for the 2nd India-Cia Summit to be hosted at Mammalapuram, TN.

Lets collect news and chatter about this summit which is a follow-up of the Wuhan Summit.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

Two models of China:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing_model

Guangdong Model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guangdong_model


and Cake Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cake_theory
Cake theory (simplified Chinese: 蛋糕论; traditional Chinese: 蛋糕論) is a metaphor about economic development and the redistribution of wealth in the political discourse of China. It emerged in 2010 as problems with an increased wealth gap became gradually more apparent. If economic development is seen as analogous to baking a cake, one side of the debate suggests that development should focus on 'dividing the cake more fairly,' while the other says development should be focused on 'baking a bigger cake.'
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by SSridhar »

Two observations on the two models (Chongqing & Guangdong).

1. It is not surprising that the coastal areas are more liberal and accommodative of changes while hinterlands are less so. This is because of the interaction from visitors from other parts of the world. This has been so for centuries and that reflects in China too

2. Bo Xilai's model of more communism, surveillance, state control, repression are what Xi & his Politburo are also implementing. Xi got rid of Bo Xilai.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

The assessment is Xi Jinping is a Chongqing personality with a Guangdong face.
So be ready for turbulence.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by ramana »

For all scholars try to read

The Lessons of History :
Chinese People's Liberation Army at 75 written in 2003.

Its titled Pub75 and is a pdf.
Quite long read.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by UlanBatori »

Hong Kongis clearly have not learned history. As in Tian An Men Square.
Stomped on Chinese flag. Heading for Gobi Le Education Centel. I don't think PeeEllAy tolerates ppl stomping on the flag.

Deathwish:
A hardcore group of protesters says the extreme actions are needed to get the government's attention. On Saturday, police used tear gas and rubber rounds against protesters who threw gasoline bombs toward them and set fires in streets.

As Sunday's protest at Shatin New Town Plaza wound down, some protesters attacked a subway station connected to the mall. They jumped up to smash overhead surveillance cameras, used hammers to knock ticket sensors off gates and spray-painted and broke the screens of ticket machines, using umbrellas to shield their identities.

Riot police arrived following the attack and guarded the station after it was closed, with a metal grill pulled down to block entry.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by chola »

Besides trying to survive Trump's trade war and Hong Kong, these two trends best indicate Cheen's vision for their future:

1) they are waiting for rural communities, their poor, to simply die out without wives for the next generation and too old to rebel:
https://mobile.twitter.com/TheEconomist ... 1515718656

2) they will annihilate the "Peaceful" from their land:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/worl ... kdown.html

Annihilating the poor and a religion (even a dangerous one) is incomprehensible (and reprehensible) in democratic and dharmic societies. But does it give them a leg up as a society that is homogenous and united that is uniformly well-off? No blackmail quotas and pay-outs to scheduled classes and minorities to start off with. Every penny goes into creating infrastructure for a high tech society set to compete for the future.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by chola »

In winning sea battles, the submarine is peerless. But Cheen is building surface ships in a massive way instead of subs.

Why?

Surface provides presence and domination during peace-time that subs can't.

Cheen's navy is meant to expand and dominate during peace while avoiding actual kinetic warfare. They have perfected the best doctrine for a rice-eating non-warrior race of merchants and shop owners.

Chini ships take over disputed tracts and global commons AND the shear numbers and size of the vessels discourage retaliation.

They are like a herd of grass-eating buffalos with an aggressive looking array of sharp horns that really can't fend off a lion or wolves should a real fight starts but can take over your field through intimidation if you are unwilling to fight.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/ ... uild-83066
China cannot be ignorant of the multiplicity of threats arrayed against its potential carrier force. For starters, the peerless U.S. Navy Submarine Force would likely make short work of China’s carriers in a conflict. But that scenario is unlikely. More likely, Chinese fleet architects are thinking about carriers more for their ability to exert influence throughout the region, like coercing nations reluctant to toe China’s nine-dash-line claims in the South China Sea, and in order to display global Chinese influence as far afield as the Eastern Pacific and the Mediterranean Sea.

...

Modern, first-rate navies tend to operate three main types of vessel: submarines, surface ships (including amphibious transport ships and logistics ships), and aircraft carriers with embarked air wings. Submarines are superb war-fighting platforms—able to operate in the opaque undersea environment. They hunt surface ships, provide incredible platforms for surreptitious surveillance, and can strike targets ashore. That said, submarines aren’t great platforms for presence, since they must stay unseen to stay alive.

Surface ships are the primary platforms employed for naval presence, deterrence, and coercion. Presence can be accomplished by unarmed or even modestly armed ships, though these are less useful in deterrence and warfighting. More heavily armed surface ships perform presence missions and are considerably more potent deterrence platforms, but are more vulnerable than submarines to modern weaponry when the shooting starts.

...
Even as the Chinese Navy expands its fleet architecture to match expansive maritime goals, several U.S. defense analysts want to consolidate the U.S. Navy. These carrier detractors would end the U.S. Navy’s balance between everyday missions and warfighting requirements by killing off America’s carriers to fund more submarines and drones. The problem with this approach is that a fleet disproportionately composed of submarines and drones cannot perform the missions necessary to keep conflict from occurring. While a submarine- and drone-heavy approach would do well once the shooting started, the U.S. Navy exists to prevent the war from starting in the first place.
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Re: Understanding New China after 19th Congress

Post by UlanBatori »

chola wrote:a leg up as a society that is homogenous and united that is uniformly well-off? No blackmail quotas and pay-outs to scheduled classes and minorities to start off with. Every penny goes into creating infrastructure for a high tech society set to compete for the future.
I think Nazi Germany tried, and Imperial Japan came close, to achieving such a happy state. Hope cheen does the same without causing the global havoc of those 2.
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