“and China.” How is France’s manufacturing infrastructure?
Macron - a true american hero for saying out loud what most people think.
Middle powers need friends. US offers only colonial vassal status with CIA determined rulers. China does not. Just buy stuff because it is best value/cheap. In the prehistory that was 2021, Russia did not vassalize its customers. Just buy their stuff because it was cheapest. Russia is not an imperial power over Europe because of counterbalance. Russia did not threaten/berate EU over green transition. Trump/Biden threatened EU over Nordstream 2. When your master extorts you with energy prices and forced war, you need new friends. The more friends, the more counterbalance for others to be friendlier to you.
If you think China doesn’t do the same as the US you are a paid actor or a useful idiot…
“surely our enemies are as evil as us!”
Im not from the USA and quite lefty haha. But it is telling that by stating a truth, the post was removed by a lemmy.ml mod.
“My paranoid bullshit was not tolerated in the company of the informed, really makes you think (about how I’m right and the mods are 1864 Animal Factory)”
We can see it in the modlog, so it’s not a real issue. The modlog says you posted misinformation, and after reading the message I concur. The vast majority of the global south are clearly aware that China is a better partner because they don’t force us to take predatory loans, restructure your economy, apply austerity, etc. They recognize our sovereignty and invest in development and infrastructure. They even pardoned a lot of debt in Africa.
If you’re missing this key difference (and, you know, how the US, usually with their vassals, keep carpet bombing random countries, forcing regime changes and hitting civilians of neutral countries with drones, while China hasn’t dropped a bomb for decades) then we can’t treat you seriously.
Finally, whether you consider yourself a lefty or not, until you deconstruct more, inform yourself and stand in solidarity with the people of the global south you’re not my comrade. Our world is built on our backs to support the excesses of empire, and China is building an alternative.
“truth” here meaning “baseless jingoism”
“Our objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powers,” he told students in Seoul. “We don’t want to depend on the dominance, let’s say on China, or we don’t want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of the US.”
European countries, he said, have a shared agenda with places like Japan and South Korea on issues like international law, democracy, climate change and global health.
we don’t want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of the US.”
The war with Iran was announced in 2001. The unpredictability of the US is that it took them so long.
US being at war is fairly predictable, tbh.
This is all political theatre. European countries continue to host US bases from which operations against Iran are currently being carried out.
Yes, but not all are allowing operations that support the war on Iran
i wonder if it’s a cover strategy for getting access to hormuz
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on medium-sized powers to join forces and stand up to the US and China.
He should ask the last group of countries that strove to be neutral between the USA and a second large power how well that worked for them.
Europe being hostile towards China isn’t exactly news though. It’s the break up of the Atlantic alliance that’s the real story.
It is an important distinction though, because standing up to US might imply leaning towards China. But standing up to US and China, implies a third option: Europe need to huddle up together.
Not really sure how that works in practice given that Europe isn’t exactly self sufficient, especially in terms of energy.
Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and any remaining Uyghur people might disagree.
Thank you for taking your valuable time from huffing gas to grace us with your profound insights.
Aw fuck. Didn’t see where I was.
not beating the accusations of huffing gas there
Isn’t Europe’s hostility towards China not a function of US hegemony? Surely there’s less reason to be hostile now.
In a sane world yes, but in reality there’s a lot of racism and notions of white supremacy at play here.
It is more than “racism and notions of white supremacy”, EU and China are both exporting and manufacturing powers. China recently moved into exporting the high value manufacturing products like cars which are a large part of the EUs economy making both blocks rivals.
The Chinese government is using state subsidies to tip the balance further in the favour of Chinese manufacturers. This is just one example from one industry, this pattern is repeated by China across the board. The government is well within its rights to do this but the EU is equally well within its rights to protect its own economy from a form of trade war. It is incredibly reductive to just play the racism card while ignoring the real issues.
EU is not really an export power in any meaningful sense. But even if that was true, you could make exact same argument with the US which directly competes with Europe on exports. Europeans have had absolutely no problem sticking their heads up American ass as far as possible.
Meanwhile, everybody is free to run their internal economy the way they see fit. The whole premise of free markets and capitalism was efficiency. It was supposed to naturally outcompete planned economies like China. If the model isn’t actually working then Europe could acknowledge that and emulate what China is doing instead of whinging. Or accept that they have an inferior model of economic development.
Finally, the EU very obviously doesn’t give a fuck about protecting its economy. If it did, it would’ve never allowed itself to become so dependent on energy imports from the US. The EU kept paying lip service to the idea of going green, but refused to invest into stuff like wind and solar because it came from China. Now the EU finds itself being bent over a barrel by Americans. And it’s frankly well deserved.
There’s the whole democracy thing.
In that China is one and Europe isn’t, you mean?
Congress at 15% approval rating is damning for democracy. FYI, 26% of Americans believes the sun revolves around the earth, and so that 15% is the functionally full tropic thundered not aware of how bad it is.
do go on
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
Elaborate
Democracies tend not to fight each other, or so the theory goes.
Authoritarian countries also usually ignore human rights. China (and Russia) constantly get called out on the human rights abuses by Europe, which irates the ruling class of China. This isn’t to say Europe is the shining beacon on the hill, they are just seen as the lesser evil.
Jesus Christ. Westerners really are the most brainwashed people on earth
With uh…minimal due derision, this isn’t a theory that holds up to scrutiny or even makes sense internally
The fact Europe still hasn’t broken all ties with Israel over their human rights abuses tells me their supposed democratic values are more window dressing than anything.
Europe is led by material interests, not democratic values.
They/most of them have Zionist supremacist laws forbidding speech against genocide.
Well there is the fact that Europe isn’t one homogeneous political entity. Spain, Ireland and Norway openly went against Israel.
Europe is the lesser evil for whom? Certainly not the victims of European colonialism and imperialism.
And when you look, you’ll see those former colonies are getting closer with Russia and China.
You realise we have democracy in China right? Just not western style liberal democracy.
Finally someone says it.
