[Politics] Nazi China

[Trunkage]

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

Sort of...but China's land grabs in the South China Sea are still a far cry away from Nazi Germany outright annexing territory - territory that in the leadup to WWII, it never had a claim to (e.g. Czechslovakia). And similarly, Nazi Germany was stirring up hatred towards Jews, gypsies, and so on. You can point to the Unghyr, but as tragic as that is, it's nowhere near the scale of Nazi Germany's attrocities. "Reeducation camps" aren't Auschitz.

Also, in the context of international law and military strength, are we really putting the US on a pedastal above China? Need I remind everyone that Iraq was an illegal war built on falsehoods that, among other things, created a power vacuum that led to ISIS? Has China outright invaded another country in recent decades?

My other problem is that India is invading right now. They have a jingoistic, patriotic (Trump's patriotism where you only allowed to do what they say) and has been denigrating anyone who isn't Hindu. They've been building up militarily and made a 'defense pact' with Japan. How are they not Germany in this situation.

Because it goes further. France did nothing about Germany because they were super worried about Russia. And Russia definitely had it's very clear issue, like illegalising homosexuality and putting people in Gulag. China is more like Soviet Russia. Worthy of scorn but maybe also be worried about another country

 

[stroopwafel]

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

Sort of...but China's land grabs in the South China Sea are still a far cry away from Nazi Germany outright annexing territory - territory that in the leadup to WWII, it never had a claim to (e.g. Czechslovakia). And similarly, Nazi Germany was stirring up hatred towards Jews, gypsies, and so on. You can point to the Unghyr, but as tragic as that is, it's nowhere near the scale of Nazi Germany's attrocities. "Reeducation camps" aren't Auschitz.

Also, in the context of international law and military strength, are we really putting the US on a pedastal above China? Need I remind everyone that Iraq was an illegal war built on falsehoods that, among other things, created a power vacuum that led to ISIS? Has China outright invaded another country in recent decades?

My other problem is that India is invading right now. They have a jingoistic, patriotic (Trump's patriotism where you only allowed to do what they say) and has been denigrating anyone who isn't Hindu. They've been building up militarily and made a 'defense pact' with Japan. How are they not Germany in this situation.

Because it goes further. France did nothing about Germany because they were super worried about Russia. And Russia definitely had it's very clear issue, like illegalising homosexuality and putting people in Gulag. China is more like Soviet Russia. Worthy of scorn but maybe also be worried about another country

None of those parallels make any sense. The border dispute over Kashmir goes almost as far back as the British colonial presence. Both Pakistan and India have made incursions, but for decades this has been kept in check through a nuclear balance. Maybe Modi feels particularly confident now that Pakistan is losing U.S. support and forces the regime to cut loose the ties between it's security apparatus and the Islamic hardliners in Waziristan and the Taliban. Without U.S. support for Pakistan there is no one to reel India in, but given the chance Pakistan would do the same. Hell, has done the same both overt and covert.

France(just like Britain) did nothing about Germany b/c Europe was tired of war after the Great War had torn the continent to pieces and decimated an entire generation of young men. France and Belgium in particular suffered lots of trench warfare. It wasn't until the invasion of Poland that Britain realized another war was inevitable. That France was somehow more worried at the time about Russia 'illegalising homosexuality' then German aggression is laughable. Anti-Bolshevism wasn't even a thing until 1942 in semi-autonomous Vichy France.

 

[vallorn]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Because the Chinese don't count the many dissapeared or people in concentration... sorry... "reeducation" camps as prisoners.

The Australian government will make sure its not breaking any of its own laws - blatantly at least - and then a letter for the Attorney or Solicitor-General will be returned saying 'No Case to Answer'. Which is polite legalese for 'Fuck off'.

IIRC, it isn't about breaking laws, but would allow companies to sue, for example, if a change a country made negatively affected a company's profits - e.g. an increase in labour protections. OTOH it's possible I just dreamed that.

No you're correct there, TPP allowed for that.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Xinjiang, their treatment of autonomous regions or states like Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and massacres like Kunming (2014) are blights on a country which also boasts a police state that would make Stalin salivate, and policies of cultural cleansing (The Falun Gong, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf, https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2008-annual-report, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) which would shame even some of the worst regimes.

 

[Trunkage]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Because the Chinese don't count the many dissapeared or people in concentration... sorry... "reeducation" camps as prisoners.

The Australian government will make sure its not breaking any of its own laws - blatantly at least - and then a letter for the Attorney or Solicitor-General will be returned saying 'No Case to Answer'. Which is polite legalese for 'Fuck off'.

IIRC, it isn't about breaking laws, but would allow companies to sue, for example, if a change a country made negatively affected a company's profits - e.g. an increase in labour protections. OTOH it's possible I just dreamed that.

No you're correct there, TPP allowed for that.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Xinjiang, their treatment of autonomous regions or states like Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and massacres like Kunming (2014) are blights on a country which also boasts a police state that would make Stalin salivate, and policies of cultural cleansing (The Falun Gong, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf, https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2008-annual-report, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) which would shame even some of the worst regimes.

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

It doesn't justify what's happening. But it was a very similar reaction to the US after 9/11. An attempt at wiping away a regime they don't like and replacing it with something they can accept. You could claim the US wasn't successful, with the rise of ISIS and the resurgence of the Taliban. But at least China didn't invade countries over it

 

[vallorn]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Because the Chinese don't count the many dissapeared or people in concentration... sorry... "reeducation" camps as prisoners.

The Australian government will make sure its not breaking any of its own laws - blatantly at least - and then a letter for the Attorney or Solicitor-General will be returned saying 'No Case to Answer'. Which is polite legalese for 'Fuck off'.

IIRC, it isn't about breaking laws, but would allow companies to sue, for example, if a change a country made negatively affected a company's profits - e.g. an increase in labour protections. OTOH it's possible I just dreamed that.

No you're correct there, TPP allowed for that.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Xinjiang, their treatment of autonomous regions or states like Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and massacres like Kunming (2014) are blights on a country which also boasts a police state that would make Stalin salivate, and policies of cultural cleansing (The Falun Gong, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf, https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2008-annual-report, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) which would shame even some of the worst regimes.

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

It doesn't justify what's happening. But it was a very similar reaction to the US after 9/11. An attempt at wiping away a regime they don't like and replacing it with something they can accept. You could claim the US wasn't successful, with the rise of ISIS and the resurgence of the Taliban. But at least China didn't invade countries over it

"At least china didn't invade countries" No, they just started mass imprisonment, KGB style surveillance programs, reeducation camps where citizens are beaten, starved etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no war hawk, but when you begin rounding up your own citizens and putting them in camps...

 

[Hawki]

Looks at thread...

...are we really getting into semantics about what counts as communism and what doesn't? Socialism, communism, whatever, you can discuss a nation without getting into the nitty gritty. Whether NK is truly communist or not doesn't change the fact that it's an authoratarian hellhole.

 

[Leg End]

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

I hope you know how that sounds.

"At least china didn't invade countries" No, they just started mass imprisonment, KGB style surveillance programs, reeducation camps where citizens are beaten, starved etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no war hawk, but when you begin rounding up your own citizens and putting them in camps...

Don't forget the organ harvesting. Always a fun subject.

 

[Trunkage]

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

I hope you know how that sounds.

It sounds like the exact excuse that the West had used to invade Muslim countries. We retaliated. China retaliated in the same fashion

 

[Trunkage]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Because the Chinese don't count the many dissapeared or people in concentration... sorry... "reeducation" camps as prisoners.

The Australian government will make sure its not breaking any of its own laws - blatantly at least - and then a letter for the Attorney or Solicitor-General will be returned saying 'No Case to Answer'. Which is polite legalese for 'Fuck off'.

IIRC, it isn't about breaking laws, but would allow companies to sue, for example, if a change a country made negatively affected a company's profits - e.g. an increase in labour protections. OTOH it's possible I just dreamed that.

No you're correct there, TPP allowed for that.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Xinjiang, their treatment of autonomous regions or states like Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and massacres like Kunming (2014) are blights on a country which also boasts a police state that would make Stalin salivate, and policies of cultural cleansing (The Falun Gong, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf, https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2008-annual-report, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) which would shame even some of the worst regimes.

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

It doesn't justify what's happening. But it was a very similar reaction to the US after 9/11. An attempt at wiping away a regime they don't like and replacing it with something they can accept. You could claim the US wasn't successful, with the rise of ISIS and the resurgence of the Taliban. But at least China didn't invade countries over it

"At least china didn't invade countries" No, they just started mass imprisonment, KGB style surveillance programs, reeducation camps where citizens are beaten, starved etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no war hawk, but when you begin rounding up your own citizens and putting them in camps...

Im not trying to say that China is better than the US. I saying the US keeps committing human rights violantions in other countries and then wonders why other countries commit violations too.

All of them are bad.

 

[vallorn]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Because the Chinese don't count the many dissapeared or people in concentration... sorry... "reeducation" camps as prisoners.

The Australian government will make sure its not breaking any of its own laws - blatantly at least - and then a letter for the Attorney or Solicitor-General will be returned saying 'No Case to Answer'. Which is polite legalese for 'Fuck off'.

IIRC, it isn't about breaking laws, but would allow companies to sue, for example, if a change a country made negatively affected a company's profits - e.g. an increase in labour protections. OTOH it's possible I just dreamed that.

No you're correct there, TPP allowed for that.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Xinjiang, their treatment of autonomous regions or states like Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and massacres like Kunming (2014) are blights on a country which also boasts a police state that would make Stalin salivate, and policies of cultural cleansing (The Falun Gong, https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/12222014_FH_ChinaReport2014_FINAL.pdf, https://www.cecc.gov/publications/annual-reports/2008-annual-report, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28china.html) which would shame even some of the worst regimes.

Is it time to point out that the Muslims in China arent innocent either. They've been bombing infrastructure and people for a while. Thousands have died.

It doesn't justify what's happening. But it was a very similar reaction to the US after 9/11. An attempt at wiping away a regime they don't like and replacing it with something they can accept. You could claim the US wasn't successful, with the rise of ISIS and the resurgence of the Taliban. But at least China didn't invade countries over it

"At least china didn't invade countries" No, they just started mass imprisonment, KGB style surveillance programs, reeducation camps where citizens are beaten, starved etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm no war hawk, but when you begin rounding up your own citizens and putting them in camps...

Im not trying to say that China is better than the US. I saying the US keeps committing human rights violantions in other countries and then wonders why other countries commit violations too.

All of them are bad.

I dunno man, it sounds a lot like the whataboutery that Soviet sympathizers used to do on the regular.

EDIT:
Also, it's not limited to Xinjiang, you've heard of the Chinese militia groups being used to attack protestors in Hong Kong right? Or the CCP's threats to invade Taiwan if they formally recognize themselves as a sovereign nation? Or the 2000 Falun Gong practitioners who they have murdered since 2009 (that we know of)? Or the Social Credit Score system? Or the massive environmental rape (Gee I wonder why massive communist states always end up with the worst environmental records when the land is owned by everyone)?

Man, China's the kind of country that if people had their heads screwed on straight we'd be imposing sanctions on them that make the Russia or Iran sanctions look like they were written on toilet paper with crayons.

 

[Trunkage]

What do you guys think happened in Iraq?

Half a million died in the first few months. Many of them civilians. There was an army policing the streets. If you stood out of line, you were tortured and imprisoned indefinitely in a different country. Innocent people became good targets for terrorists. Civilians were used as spied to weed out terrorists. Most of them were allowed to die by the US. You couldn't become a refugee from Iraq because no one wanted you, even before the invasion.

All over a Bush not liking their leader. Maybe it's not as bad as China but it sure isn't good.

 

[vallorn]

What do you guys think happened in Iraq?

Half a million died in the first few months. Many of them civilians. There was an army policing the streets. If you stood out of line, you were tortured and imprisoned indefinitely in a different country. Innocent people became good targets for terrorists. Civilians were used as spied to weed out terrorists. Most of them were allowed to die by the US. You couldn't become a refugee from Iraq because no one wanted you, even before the invasion.

All over a Bush not liking their leader. Maybe it's not as bad as China but it sure isn't good.

War is War. It's an ugly mess and some things involved are unavoidable.
Furthermore, you seem to have snorted something nasty because your numbers are completely bonkers

Classified US military documents released by WikiLeaks in October 2010, record Iraqi and Coalition military deaths between January 2004 and December 2009. The documents record 109,032 deaths broken down into "Civilian" (66,081 deaths), "Host Nation" (15,196 deaths),"Enemy" (23,984 deaths), and "Friendly" (3,771 deaths).

So nowhere near the "Half a million in the first 6 months", in the space of Five Years there was 1/5 of that.
For a more comprehensive breakdown there's also

Associated Press stated that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war to April 2009. This number is per the Health Ministry tally of 87,215 covering January 1, 2005, to February 28, 2009 combined with counts of casualties for 2003?2004, and after February 29, 2009, from hospital sources and media reports.

"there was an army policing the streets". Would you rather they didn't? In vacuums of authority, people tend to start rioting and looting, we see it after national disasters as well. It's the duty of an army in this position to try and maintain some degree of law and order until a more normal police force can be forged.

"You couldn't become a refugee from Iraq", well that's just completely false. Did you bother actually checking before you posted that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_diaspora_in_Europe

Iraqis have become the third largest refugee population after the Afghans and the Palestinians.

The majority of these 2 million refugees have found haven in Jordan and Syria, which have kept their borders open for those Iraqis who want to flee the country. However, neither Syria nor Jordan have signed the 1951 Refugee Convention and address the Iraqis not as refugees, but as "guests" on the basis of Arab solidarity.

Due to the large influx of Iraqis that were arriving to Syrian and Jordan in 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) established that year a resettlement program in Damascus and Amman. By October 2009, the UNHCR reported that it had referred more than 82,500 refugees for resettlement in industrialized countries, 75 per cent of which were resettled in the United States and the remaining 25 per cent in Canada, Australia and a lesser number in European countries.

 

[Leg End]

What do you guys think happened in Iraq?

I thought this was all about China and Australia? Why are we going on "China is bad but the US is also bad"? Why does one country doing stupid shit make it in any way acceptable for anyone else to do stupid shit? You went on about US concentration camps but China actually has concentration camps for political dissidents and religious minorities, and very likely is harvesting organs from such.

What's your end point here?

 

[Hawki]

I thought this was all about China and Australia? Why are we going on "China is bad but the US is also bad"?

One can't discuss the rise of China without factoring in the US. Both countries are vying for influence in the Asia-Pacific, both countries are in a trade war, and how those countries interact inevitably affects the rest of the world.

 

[madwarper]

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

Of course not, they're "Organ Donors".

 

[Saelune]

Looks at thread...

...are we really getting into semantics about what counts as communism and what doesn't? Socialism, communism, whatever, you can discuss a nation without getting into the nitty gritty. Whether NK is truly communist or not doesn't change the fact that it's an authoratarian hellhole.

Its not 'semantics', its ideology. You cant claim to be part of an ideology if you don't believe in it, yet tons of people do it all the time.

Places like China claim to be communist, but they do not actually follow the rules of communism, and therefor are NOT communist, but then you have people who hate the very idea of communism, and point to China as an excuse to hate it, but that is unfair since as stated, China is not actually communist.

When you say something or someone is communist, socialist, democratic, republican, etc, you are describing specific things. If they dont fit those things though, then its just not the right word.


Its lies and bullshit, and we need to stop allowing it.

 

[Trunkage]

Can we start here:

actually has concentration camps

Oh silly, we had a whole thread telling us that the border camps were definitely not Concentration Camps because there wasn't a lot of gas chambers or Nazis. Thus these cant be Concentration Camps.

Now me personally, I don't define Concentration Camps by gas chambers. I define it by how you go around locking people up. I also recognise there is a difference between Nazi controlled camps and not. I DO classify these China "reeduection camps" as concentration camps but I also think the ones on the border of the US are concentration camps. There is very little difference. Poor treatment. Not allowing someone live until they are acceptable to society. Targeting racial group. I don't know the death rates yet. That may make the Chinese ones worse. The US also deliberately breaks apart family group and we don't think that happens in the Chinese ones.

Suffice to say, both are terrible and another solution should be found. You can also include Australia's Manus Island etc. Because, while immigrants are being treated there, they've also been left there for 6 years with no end in sight.

What do you guys think happened in Iraq?

I thought this was all about China and Australia? Why are we going on "China is bad but the US is also bad"? Why does one country doing stupid shit make it in any way acceptable for anyone else to do stupid shit? You went on about US concentration camps but China actually has concentration camps for political dissidents and religious minorities, and very likely is harvesting organs from such.

What's your end point here?

Mike Pompeo was trying to tell Australia what to do. The US wants to put their missiles inside our borders. But somehow they aren't involved? These trade wars are hurting everyone, not just China and the US.

Also, while we should be concerned about China, I think we should also be concerned about India and its power grabs too.

And lastly, for the love of gods, when did I say any of this was acceptable? I specifically pointed to at least 5 countries and how they are ALL destabilising the region. None of it is acceptable.

See, I dont see things in black and white. The US got away with heaps of stuff for a couple of decades but are complaining about another country doing the same thing. If the US wants to be the morality police (like it has for 70 years), at least show some morality. Dont ask Australia to fight battle of their own making.

EDIT: I can see China reasoning. "The US gets away with stuff and ignores international laws. So can we."

 

[Leg End]

Oh silly, we had a whole thread telling us that the border camps were definitely not Concentration Camps because there wasn't a lot of gas chambers or Nazis. Thus these cant be Concentration Camps.

Yeah and I was in the camp(hurr) that they were still not concentration camps.

Now me personally, I don't define Concentration Camps by gas chambers. I define it by how you go around locking people up. I also recognise there is a difference between Nazi controlled camps and not. I DO classify these China "reeduection camps" as concentration camps but I also think the ones on the border of the US are concentration camps. There is very little difference.

Forgive me for ignoring absolutely everything else you're saying. You're going to tell me, just on a base level, that organ harvesting is "very little difference"? Please, explain.

 

[Seanchaidh]

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Are we only counting officially known prisoners or are we also including people who have mysteriously disappeared after critiquing China?

How many people do you think that is? Is it as many as 450,000? Or to put it another way, is it literally more than a quarter of the entire Chinese prison population?

China has a population of 1.39 billion and a prison population of 1.65 million.
The United States, by contrast, has a population of 0.33 billion and a prison population of 2.12 million.
Per 100,000 people China has 118 imprisoned whereas the United States has 655.

China doesn't have the best human rights record in the world, but comparing it to Nazi Germany is rediculous. If we have to compare it to Germany at all, maybe Germany pre-WWI; rising power coming into conflict with established powers. Back then it was the UK and France, now it's the United States.

From a military/imperialistic point of view China can very well be compared with pre-WW2 germany. It is claiming territory against everyone's will and against international law, has an ever increasing military strength and is being generally ignored by everyone.

And yet the United States has more prisoners.

Perhaps, but China is culturally cleansing an entire region (Xinjiang). Are all the muslims in "reeducation camps" counted as "prisoners" in the statistics?

China

China: World Prison Brief rate of 118 per 100,000 at mid-2015 is for 1,649,804 sentenced prisoners in Ministry of Justice prisons only. World Prison Brief states that in addition to the sentenced prisoners, there may be more than 650,000 held in detention centers. "A total prison population of 2,300,000 would raise the prison population rate to 164 per 100,000."[10]

After 2015 there was a great increase in the number of people in the Xinjiang re-education camps.[citation needed] Hundreds of thousands to millions may have been detained.[citation needed] See also: Re-education through labor, and Laogai.

OK. 164 vs. 655

And the United States is built on the cleansing of nearly an entire continent. Or to put it another way: our native reservations also aren't included in these prison statistics. And even though they aren't included, the per capita incarceration rate is still vastly higher in the United States than in China. But China is the authoritarian hellhole. Right.

 

[stroopwafel]

Guys, international politics isn't about who is 'right' or who is 'wrong' it is about who has power and who has not. And if a country does not have power, who has leverage over those who have. Countries without power or leverage are the ones that are fucked. It is the reason why Iraq got invaded(no nuclear deterrence or allies willing to stand in) and North Korea is treated with silk gloves despite constant provocations(nukes + support from China). Take the countries that Putin is preying on(Baltics, Ukraine etc) without the flimsy Nato protection that Trump no longer believes in they would follow Crimea's fate. The moment that Libya tried to placate the U.S. by banning it's nuclear weapons Khadaffi gets overthrown and civil war breaks out, aggravating the European refugee crisis.

The diminishing influence of the U.S. b/c of China's rise and Russian resurgence is particularly noteworthy. Assad barrel bombs his population after having capitalized on the ISIS vacuum but Russian support(and the Wagner group) prevents no 'red line being crossed'. Chinese/Russian military exercise in the Pacific as a direct provocation of Japanese and South Korean security interests finds no U.S. riposte. Severe civil unrest breaks out in Venezuela after Chavez and Maduro bakrupted the country, Trump wants Maduro gone but no one dares to intervene after Russian military trainers landed in the country.

It is the reason why Trump is alone in his trade war. And why he is alone in wanting to cancel the nuclear deal with Iran and escalate the situation to suit his own(Saudi) interests. Slowly, yet surely they are figuring out they are no longer the only one that dominate the world stage. In such a situation, when in decline even a more 'democratic' country will result to more and more dirty tactics.