To: Classicaliberalconservative
Unless you can me wrong, I submit that Romania and Belarus are not Third World. I have always read that they are both "Second World" nations, but again, if you have a credible link to the contrary I will be more than happy to look at it.
Taiwan and Singapore are civilized, successful nations by most standards (though Singapore's barbaric system of justice is hardly "Western" by modern standards, but not part of "Western Civilization", which is has its roots in European Christianity. Having said that, I have no problem with immigration from those two places (and would welcome more of it), yet I wonder why Taiwan and Singapore are not obligated to accept mass Third World immigration, yet American and European nations are.
To: Phillip Augustus
Second World refered to nations with command economies. The first, second and third world terminologies were developed during Cold War to describe political alignments. China and Russia were both considered part of the Second World. The third world back than was non aligned nations many of them recently independent colonies that were fought over by the first and second world. Nowadays third world is just used to describe dirt poor nations.
To: Phillip Augustus
Most scholars consider Japan a part of Western Civilization because of its post war modernization. If that is the case the Asian Tigers should be considered a part of Western Civilization as should parts of coastal China like Shanghai, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
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