Sucks, but the so-called “second world” is witnessing what sees as brisk business, deals with anyone from Canada to Taliban Afghanistan.
However I do not sugarcoat the fact that some countries are now handing themselves from one falling hegemony with another, one that allows greater reckless capitalism but devalues individual personal freedoms.
It would almost be better of Trump was a conscious agent deliberately working for the benefit of China, but he’s just an angry, petulant, bigoted moron whose rage and greed and stupidity have pretty much guaranteed that China is going to lead the world in pretty much everything in the coming years while the US clings increasingly desperately to a mostly illusory past.
The US’s position of economic strength is so fragile too. Most of it is in the financial and technology sectors, both of which can be moved relatively easily because their value is in non-tangible things. China’s economic power is in manufacturing - being able to build tangible things. Factories are much more stable.
I don’t necessarily think China is as bad as we make it out to be. What major country doesn’t have their gov spying on them?! I would almost argue that the US has more surveillance tech on its citizens than any other developed country. Based on how much tech we know exists and can assume exists that we don’t know about, plus, with how much the US involves itself in other countries business, it’d be no surprise how much they know about everyone else domestically.
You litterally can’t form an independent workers union in China, it’s Bad.
You can’t move to the city you work in, both to keep house prices artificially low and to prevent organizing.
You can criticize the government online but the moment you try and organize a protest you get a knock on the door.
The state aren’t openly shooting protestors in the street these days but it doesn’t make it a good place for regular citizens.
From my (limited) understanding, China is both as bad and not as bad, depending on what is being compared and who you ask. You kind of have to read between the lines of pro and anti Chinese propaganda to find the nuggets of truth. But absolutely a lot of the criticisms that get levelled against China are 100% valid against western countries too. Like I can’t help but roll my eyes when I read about some US official blabbing about Chinese spying when the US has face-tracking Flock cameras on nearly every street corner, intersection, park, pathway, etc.
The core difference, arguably only with the US, are individual freedoms like speech, religion, armament, etc.
Even though the US is currently trampling all over the bill of rights, it isn’t something that can be easily ignored or covered up. Protest can and will still happen all the time.
China heavily values cohesion over individuality, so the only “free speech” you get to usually witness is scrutinized before it ever reaches you, and everyone is aware that the government actively covers up issues.
Aside from that, China is miles ahead of the US in development, infrastructure, and their economy. Most of the US complaints over China are hypocritical as you say, or only exist due to the US viewing China as a military an economic threat.
A lot of people would probably be happy to give up those freedoms in exchange for social stability and quality of life if they were given the option.
I think the valid complaints you can levy towards China are similar in respect to any nation that is becoming a dominant superpower. I think the problem that most people are having is that they weren’t around when the US or European powers were securing their own hegemony.
Pretty much any developing superpower is going to have an issue with nationalism, historical revisionism, and eyeballing territorial/cultural expansion. I am Korean and have had quite a few Chinese friends. Of those friends opinions can vary greatly depending on where their from and when they migrated. What I can attest too is that recent migrants from the mainland tend to be very nationalistic and have some very worrying opinions about history compared to the Chinese people I grew up around. Particularly that China is basically the motherland of all East Asia, and that all East Asians are basically estranged children that should be folded back into the greater body of China.
I would argue that China is doing this with a much gentler hand than the US or Europe did historically, however it still sticks out due to how those types of actions are viewed through a modern and western centric lens.
Then you for your insight!
with a much gentler hand
In some affairs, sure, like anything to do with business. But they’re so heavy-handed in others, such as literally believing “South China Sea” belongs to them completely, and so bad they tried to sink a small Philippine Coast Guard ship.
I was speaking in relative terms in regards to expansion. Relative to something like the US’s use of the Monroe doctrine, China’s handling of the south China sea is pretty mild.
While they are heavy handed in the scope of modern time…they aren’t exactly having their version of Teddy Roosevelt invading Cuba or anything.
Plus the Philippines were under American occupation for 50 years until the end of WWII.
From what I heard, in US or EU people are supposed to have some privacy, they have a right to privacy. Police should get a warrant to be able to obtain information about you. And if those are violated, news articles are written, people get outraged and sometimes someone is even punished. In China, you have no right to privacy. Everyone knows the government is following their every step, every action, and they are ok with having no privacy.
My opinion on China is also mixed. On one hand, their policies seem reasonable, they do not engage in proxy wars, support green energy, etc. On the other hand, workers have desparate lives, threaten their neighbours, restrict much more freedom of citizens …
If the US has a right to privacy, it’s basically nonexistent.
Almost every piece of technology is tracked through identifiers, tracking cookies, location services, cellular data transmission, nearby devices/services, facial recognition or license plate recognition, and more.
Data brokers buy, sell, and trade data in the PBs, and a lot of AI is useful on is training on our data to adjust wages, pricing of goods and services, or premiums like insurance rates, etc. Pair that with the media, they feed you only enough to be a distraction or just enough to mislead. They track how much you watch and what times so they can keep you in an echo chamber or keep you supressed if you go against the grain.
They know all about you, height, weight, age, sex, who you hang out with, where you’ve lived, your income, your spending habits, driving patterns and habits, where you’ve visited and how often, where you get groceries, where you shop online. They figure out what ads to display for you, what times it works best, what might be controversial enough to get you to click a link. They use algorithms to share upsetting or conflicting into to get people sucked into the content they want you to consume.
There is so much subliminal and subconscious control, it’s hardly noticeable. It probably sounds super “tinfoil hat”, but when you have enough information on how its gathered and executed, you realize with how much you know and have learned, there probably so much more you don’t know or haven’t learned.
Data brokers buy, sell, and trade data in the PBs
And of course, there’s surely a cutout or a shell company belonging to some hostile intelligence apparatus waving millions to buy that data, so that eventually they get to know whom to target for stealing information by hacking whatever they have, or start a blackmail operation.
No doubt!
I have meant goverment tracking, police shouldn’t have access to this data without a permission (but don’t know, if it is true). Also, people don’t know about the tracking, and would be surprised if they would discover this. In China they know they are tracked by everything by companies /government. That’s the difference, in the west people at least expect to have a privacy.
Well, yeah maybe in theory the US supposedly has privacy.
The NSA over 20 years ago began to surveil all citizens post 9/11
https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/privacy-and-surveillance/nsa-surveillance
Police, specifically federal ICE agents, use Stingrays aka IMSI simulators to hijack cell signals to spy on users nearby and track them down.
https://sls.eff.org/technologies/cell-site-simulators-imsi-catchers
Maybe the US is worse for misleading its citizens into thinking they’re safe and have privacy, but it is far from the truth. Is not about whether or not you have anything to hide, it’s about having peace of mind of actual security in data. Or hell just your day to day.
It’s like a cheater in a relationship. They accuse you of all these nasty things because they do it themselves and think if they do it so must everyone else be doing it too. Every accusation is an admission of guilt…
Venezuela.
