I've put this here because it will becoming an increasing global political problem.
The BBC have had a "roving reporter" in various parts of Russia during the current kick-about. From Siberia he reported growing concern about the rising numbers of Chinese tourists. These tourists put little into the local economy, they fly on Chinese airlines, stay only at Chinese owned and staffed hotels, eat only at Chinese resturants, use only Chinese guides etc, etc. Seems they also display bad manners towards the licals and are suspected to want to "take over" Lake Baikal.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1084024.shtml
But this is becoming a widespread problem. Sone countries have "sold" aggricultural land and mineral resources to China in exchange for infrastructure. In sone cases tge qusluty of the roadsvetc has not been up to stsbdard. In any event tge labour heeded to build, farm and mine is drawn from China, no jobs for locals.
Add to that things like airfields in Africa that are restricted to Chinese aircraft only . . . There are few articles that I can find on this I admit, I am relying on mentions on the BBC again, but there does seem to be a pattern. Chinese buying American and European companies, making most of the world's electronics and plastic goods . . .
Is this a slow motion attempt to take over the world?
Yes Dave, yes it is.
China's been slowly buying into the world economy for decades.
Now, they're just stepping into the vacuum left by the US withdrawal and bungles.
They are the big dog on the world stage.
Probably pulling Putin's strings too.
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 01:51:50 PM
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
While most countries have short-term plans and deals, China is playing the long game.
Any individual loss is acceptable for the greater gain.
10 years, 20 years, 50 years... not 2 or 4 years.
Quote from: joeactor on June 29, 2018, 02:01:04 PM
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 01:51:50 PM
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
tWhile most countries have short-term plans and deals, China is playing the long game.
Any individual loss is acceptable for the greater gain.
10 years, 20 years, 50 years... not 2 or 4 years.
That's the trope, might be some truth in it.
Their head guy's got himself declared head guy for life.
Quote from: joeactor on June 29, 2018, 02:01:04 PM
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 01:51:50 PM
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
While most countries have short-term plans and deals, China is playing the long game.
Any individual loss is acceptable for the greater gain.
10 years, 20 years, 50 years... not 2 or 4 years.
This tine thing is part of the divide between East and West. Both China and the Islamic world have "binding principles" that, mostly, outlive the West's short term political systems. Even Russia has a sense of nationhood that seems to survive the changes in the political hierarchy. However, the changes in China; increasing globalisation, tourism out of the country, numbers of millionaires, commercial separation from the state, public disaffection over social matters - plus Xi Jinping's seeming moves to become a "pseudo-emporer" - might bite their collective ass at some time.
But, the West's economic models could fold faster than that if the current protectionism and spllts continue.
Quote from: joeactor on June 29, 2018, 02:01:04 PM
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 01:51:50 PM
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
While most countries have short-term plans and deals, China is playing the long game.
Any individual loss is acceptable for the greater gain.
10 years, 20 years, 50 years... not 2 or 4 years.
So if they were in charge we mightn't be heading towards a climate change dystopia.
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 03:15:06 PM
Quote from: joeactor on June 29, 2018, 02:01:04 PM
Quote from: Bad Penny II on June 29, 2018, 01:51:50 PM
Do they gain more than they lose from their nefariousness?
Huawei is getting closed out of major infrastructure contracts.
While most countries have short-term plans and deals, China is playing the long game.
Any individual loss is acceptable for the greater gain.
10 years, 20 years, 50 years... not 2 or 4 years.
So if they were in charge we mightn't be heading towards a climate change dystopia.
China's industrial growth over the past couple of decades or so, with its ever increasing demand for energy and mineral resources (plus the growth in domestic car sales), has been a large factor in global climate change. It seems they are working on this, reducing the building of coal fired generators and increasing the number of solar energy collectors etc. Though I have not heard much about their plans for a solar-only city for some time.
The "future-view" thing seems to be more ideological, but a national ideology that goes back so far that, at times, seems almost genetic! The Japanese suffer something similar though three centuries odd of increasing Western contact has, perhaps, taken the edges off that.
Catching up on the mention of the Chinese "Solar city"
https://youtu.be/aaQFSYcFgkA
Guessing this is a Chinese production, but maybe indicative of "Things to come"?
Quote from: Dave on June 29, 2018, 03:46:52 PM
Catching up on the mention of the Chinese "Solar city"
https://youtu.be/aaQFSYcFgkA
Guessing this is a Chinese production, but maybe indicative of "Things to come"?
China... Leading the way,
Quote from: joeactor on June 29, 2018, 07:57:17 PM
Quote from: Dave on June 29, 2018, 03:46:52 PM
Catching up on the mention of the Chinese "Solar city"
https://youtu.be/aaQFSYcFgkA
Guessing this is a Chinese production, but maybe indicative of "Things to come"?
China... Leading the way,
Well . . .
I wonder about the economics. The Chinese state has the power and funding to build that city as a "not-for-profit" propaganda effort. Even for them its vosts must be very high and it will make no economic sense unless every building earns its construction costs - even as a "n-f-p" project. PE panels degrade at about 1%/year. So, let's say with an 80% lowest allowable efficiency limit that is a max 20 year life. That is assuming good quality and efficiency to start with. If the demand increases, as it might, a fair lump of Chinese industrial output could be taken up with making PE panels for replacement and new build. At home!
In those 20 years there will be a strong drive for new materials and techniques (all over the world) for cheaper and faster production - hopefully with at least equally efficient in-use life.
Lot of new building techniques there as well, have they been fully weather tested?
These will be for elite workers for the moment I am guessing, even if rents are subsidised. Photos of a new factory my old firm were buying in China (build your stuff here or we won't buy it) showed the workers' accomodation - streets upon streets of (probably perfectly adequate) identical, grey, cast conncrete dwellings. And an area of nice houses, with gardens, for the upper echelons. Oh, the factory had a nice garden as well, around a fair sized lake - that was actually the reservoir for the flow testing plant.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/13/fearful-australian-publisher-allen-unwin-drops-book-china/ (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/13/fearful-australian-publisher-allen-unwin-drops-book-china/)
Quoteleading publisher in Australia, Allen & Unwin, has dropped a book about the influence of China's Communist Party in Australia's domestic affairs, citing fears of retaliation by Beijing.
In a decision likened to the recent decision by Cambridge University Press to restrict access to sensitive China-related articles, the release of the forthcoming book Silent Invasion: How China is Turning Australia into a Puppet State was shelved by the publisher over concerns about potential legal action by China.
Clive Hamilton, the author and a prominent Australian academic, said the decision by Allen & Unwin demonstrated the extent of the "shadow cast by Beijing".
It is believed to be the first time that a publisher has suspended publication of a book in a Western market because of fears of potential pressure from Beijing.
I wonder if they understand what this sort of behaviour costs them.
Their claims of our xenophobia, racism and their innocence are looking pretty weak.
There's an inter with Clive here.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/china-influence/9527712 (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/betweenthelines/china-influence/9527712)
^
Yup, looks par for the course, having got the economic hooks in they start dragging things in their direction ideologically, legally etc.
I think most of the commplaints about xenophobia etc, like so many things they say, are just there to keep their public fooled and ours confused. Ruke one: demonise and dehumanise the opposition - a standard tactic for centuries. This possibly goes back to the bad Chinese manners in Siberia. I am not sure thst even Putin is willing to take them on at the momrnt - the West is currently a soft and potentially self-destroying target so he msy be concentrating his attention this way.
China imports a lot of gas and oil from Russia, I think that is more of a danger to Russia than to China. Just a feeling. Energy, food and water will be the future casus belli. But then, barring personal power and religion, they were always at the root.
Quote from: Dave on June 30, 2018, 01:44:58 PM
^
Yup, looks par for the course, having got the economic hooks in they start dragging things in their direction ideologically, legally etc.
I think most of the commplaints about xenophobia etc, like so many things they say, are just there to keep their public fooled and ours confused. Ruke one: demonise and dehumanise the opposition - a standard tactic for centuries. This possibly goes back to the bad Chinese manners in Siberia. I am not sure thst even Putin is willing to take them on at the momrnt - the West is currently a soft and potentially self-destroying target so he msy be concentrating his attention this way.
China imports a lot of gas and oil from Russia, I think that is more of a danger to Russia than to China. Just a feeling. Energy, food and water will be the future casus belli. But then, barring personal power and religion, they were always at the root.
If you were saying the opposite of this I'd probably being saying what you're saying. But you're not so....
There has been a theme of pessimism as to the future of the "West" running through this thread.
We allow our people freedom, increasingly.
Innovation I think, you could argue, finds freedom the more fertile ground.
The Soviets had to build a wall in Berlin to stop the attrition.
There were studies I can't cite 'cause I'm shallow and superficial, anyway they indicated that areas that were open, allowed people the freedom to be thrived economically.
We've got the runs on board.
That's a cricket reference, not everywhere plays.
We've the points on the board.
Whose team was Newton on? OURs!
Yes, and so was Leibniz.
Was Einstein a Chinaman? NO!
When you've drunk to much on a Saturday night do you put on a Chinese band? NO!
No, and neither do they, 'cause they're bands are shit.
How the fuck are you going to conclude this?
Freedom! our civilisation isn't cosy, it's chaotic but it's brilliant.
It they didn't have us to copy where'd they be?
That's right, tooling around not even able to weaponise their fireworks.
^
A thread of caution, and a concern that we do not have the right kind of leaders, in the West, at the moment. China, Russia and ecen Islam view our kibd of liberal freedom as a critical weakness - and they could be right. Chuck in the divisions breaking up the Western economic, and possibly, even probably, military unions . . .
As for inovation - the Chinese universities are more like factories, but amongst those tens of thousands of students pumoed out of the first degree courses every year there are bound to be some real smsrties. We had a couple working for my old company, well, I hope they were doing so - I know the woman was in regular contact with her old professor after working hours. I surprised her obe evening, she said she was jyst asking him for advice, but plans for our latest model were all over her desk.
There are enough incentives over there for scientists and engineers to want to progress China's abilities, it seems they are well reewrded, msybe vetter than those in the West. The East used to be the place that copied Western technology, and often improved it. The Japsnese were goid st that with motorbikes, cars, cameras etc. China can afford to flood the world even at a small loss for future gain.
Yeah, I am bothered about the future and am ashamed of our leaders. Even though I won't see the final outcome (barring WW3 starting very soon) and have no kids.
I am, to a degree, viewing it almost as a possible prologue to a "distopian-future" type novel. It has many of the elements.