Posted on 01/03/2017 9:27:20 PM PST by ifinnegan
Loath as I am to agree with Trump about almost anything, on this one, he may have a point. Since the start of the U.S.-China detente with President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit in 1972, America has been content to allow Beijing to set the parameters, even the lexicon, of the relationship, with the U.S. often getting little or nothing in return. It may be time to start treating China like any other country -- and that may mean talking tough when needed, and ignoring the fabled thin-skinned sensibilities of Beijing's Communist rulers.
China has long been held to a different standard than other countries because its size and economic potential made it too big to ignore or to anger. What other country could get away with widespread repression, jailing lawyers, journalists, bloggers human rights activists and a Nobel Prize winner, with harassing U.S. Navy ships in international waters, and with raiding the offices of multinational companies on spurious charges, all with impunity?
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But U.S. engagement with China has always been premised on a bet that has so far proven wrong -- that as China prospered, with assistance and a friendly hand from the West, it would essentially become more like America, playing by all the established rules of acceptable international behavior. "Washington for years believed that a strong, stable China would be a friendlier China. It didn't turn out that way," said John Pomfret, a former Washington Post colleague and author of "The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom," a new book on the history of U.S.-China relations. Washington, he noted, has got the strong China it has been dreaming of, literally since the 1840s. "But it's not a friendlier China at all."
(Excerpt) Read more at asia.nikkei.com ...
Knowledgable objective discussion is supplanting the partisan know-nothing scaremonger approach that always immediately greets Trump's novel actions.
Trump is steps ahead, again.
And China is a global freeloader.
>>And China is a global freeloader.<<
China isn’t as rich as they make out to be. One small example, they built many ghost cities. Like field of dreams, if you build it they will come. But no, the cities didn’t fill up. All that concrete, steel and labor to build those buildings were counted in their economic growth. But for no useful purpose, it was just a gigantic make works program that was hugely inefficient. Also China has terrible quality. The buildings they do make are poor quality and people have a different mindset there. Even homes are poorly maintained.
Start a trade war and I suspect they will have no choice but to cry uncle as their economy is actually very precarious.
China is a House of Cards.
“The buildings they do make are poor quality.”
You mean like this?
>China isn’t as rich as they make out to be. One small example, they built many ghost cities. Like field of dreams, if you build it they will come. But no, the cities didn’t fill up. All that concrete, steel and labor to build those buildings were counted in their economic growth. But for no useful purpose, it was just a gigantic make works program that was hugely inefficient. Also China has terrible quality. The buildings they do make are poor quality and people have a different mindset there. Even homes are poorly maintained.
Despite media reports, the ghost cities do fill up it just takes a few a years. I’ve chatted with people who teach English in China and we’re fooling ourselves if we think they’re not the next big thing in the world.
Here’s a high speed train in 2016 in china:
https://youtu.be/oJruW7lSFK0
Take a look out those windows and tell if you see a first or a second world nation? All I see is an upcoming first world super power.
It just baffles me how anyone could assume a more prosperous nation would be more self-reflective.
You guys express my thoughts exactly.
Glad to see it.
International boycott of China till it frees its people.
Communism will NEVER have a fruitful, happy, productive and beautiful society, they might empower one or two of those elements but never the whole enchalada.
The only semi successful socialist countries i know of are Australia and Canada, the former has many success stories but ultimately it fails giving full freedom to its people, they are happy well fed, very fit, employed sheep. A super nanny government in its reality. If the country were to triple in population then its socialistic society would crash, because then the sheep start asking questions about those funny buildings where the lambs go silent.
LOL! I just read another article where the author started in much the same way. “I am loath to credit Trump with anything, but...”. Winning!
Yeah.
It seems a necessary disclaimer they must make.
It’s also, as you say, a win.
It’s a breakthrough.
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