Google Considers China's "Web Mapping License" 133
eldavojohn writes "Back in May, China rolled out new laws requiring online mapping services to be 'certified' by the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping. The laws appear to go into effect this month. Today an AFP article outlines Google's consideration of these rules and notes that it's unlikely Google will meet the qualifications to become certified as all of its servers holding the mapping data are outside of China. The AFP also reported that 'Foreign firms wanting to provide mapping and surveying services in China are required to set up joint ventures or partnerships with local firms.' Unless large changes are made, Google's services might get a lot more stunted as China regulates onward."
Some Additional Speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
The AFP also reported that 'Foreign firms wanting to provide mapping and surveying services in China are required to set up joint ventures or partnerships with local firms.'
I omitted my commentary on this particular clause as it's pretty much just speculation but I would claim that the government is encouraging/requiring/enabling corporate espionage. Not to mention the probably very sensitive close up data Google may or may not have of areal images of the United States. Now, it might just be that the government wants to foster local businesses but I would argue that it has more to do with strategy and espionage. I know I'd be uncomfortable.
Re:Some Additional Speculation (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok... that's their right as a sovereign nation, but I'd again point out that seeing the Chinese economy as a panacea of growth and opportunity will turn sour at some point in the future as firms wake up and understand how a monolithic government like China views them and the concept of "rule of law". Top down economies and societies have a relatively short shelf life; the Soviet Union proved that. When you have a small group of elites deciding the go forward path of any large economy, the results will be unstable... as the mistakes of these elites compound expect China to cannibalize more foreign business interests. I have no idea when this will happen, but I'd bet a few bucks that it will happen eventually.
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Oh, no, no, bending local laws is the worst thing and US doesn't do it; US bends foreign laws, I guess that's quite noble.
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With the exception of defense, agricultural interests and other smaller political honeypots, the answer to my questions is no, there are no economically distorting factor
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"Whether the motivation is espionage or "encouraging growth of domestic companies", the results are similar. China has no problems bending the laws to benefit their companies at the expense of foreign ones."
Sorry, but how is this different from the US exactly?
- The current BP leak is a fine example, BP is being held to higher standards than the US companies that are responsible for Exxon Valdez sized leaks every single year in Nigeria, and well, Bhopal is a fine example of US environmental hypocrisy too
- BA
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Wow that's a lot of paranoia.
Boeing was allegedly given massively unfair advantage in the next generation tanker deal
Fixed that for you.
BAE was fined by the US over a bribery scandal in the Saudi Eurofighter deal, yet US companies do this exact same thing all the time
I'm unfamiliar with that case, but I'm getting an apples-and-oranges vibe. Can you verify that the fine wasn't related to national security issues rather than "just" corruption?
BP is being held to higher standards than the US companies that are responsible for Exxon Valdez sized leaks every single year in Nigeria,
Nigeria? Why the hell should the US government be responsible for overseeing environmental protection elsewhere in the world? It'd be *nice* of us, perhaps, but that's up to the Nigerian government to request. Again, apples and oranges.
It's a bit rich for an American company to complain about an overseas company bending the law
(1) It's the Chinese government blocking foreig
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There was no allegedly about the Boeing case, EADS/Northrop initially won the contract, but immense lobbying by US politicians to make it a US only contract hence bolstering the US market at the expense of the European market even though the primarily European tender was deemed far superior ended up leaving EADS/Northrop no choice but to withdraw because it had been made clear the tender was being switched to Boeing after EADS/Northrop had already wasted millions on the project.
Regarding the Eurofighter dea
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No it's not. BP spilled oil in American territory. That's why they're being held to a higher standard. Has nothing to do with their foreign/domestic status. If anything, their near and dear ties to Britain has caused us to temper our condemnation of them considera
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While I think you are right, I think you're missing out another aspect.
Maps are a crucial propaganda tool though they may not look like it at first sight, and the Chinese government is certainly a massive propaganda machine.
To give an illustration by example. Back in the early 80's South Africa's apartheid policy had included creating a number of so-called separate republics for certain ethnic groups to live in. Of course no other country but South Africa recognized them as independent states but they allow
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http://www.ted.com/talks/parag_khanna_maps_the_future_of_countries.html [ted.com]
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First off, China and the Soviet Union might have had something in common once, but no more. The Chinese today are as much about "communism" as the US is about free and fair elections--they give lip service to it but that's about it. China, in fact, is proof positive that democracy and capitalism have absolutely nothing to do with each other--that capitalism really thrives best in a dictatorship where the people have relatively little say. What China is engaged in is some good old fashioned protectionism.
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I think you should look closed to home when you make statements like "bending the laws to benefit their companies at the expense of foreign ones." Clearly this is not a problem invented in China. The US for example, despite having signed the NAFTA and being in agreement with international trade laws (WTO), have in numerous occasions bent the rules. One example is the Canadian softwood lumber dispute [wikipedia.org]. The difference here is that the US can "bully" Canada but China owns a large part of the US foreign debt and
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Whether the motivation is espionage or "encouraging growth of domestic companies", the results are similar. China has no problems bending the laws to benefit their companies at the expense of foreign ones.
Shocking!!
It's not only their right, changing the rules in favour of their companies is the only ethical thing to do, if they think it is what benefits their citizens. The only thing they have to take into account is possible negative consequences for their own people, and if they can afford them.
... Top down economies and societies have a relatively short shelf life; the Soviet Union proved that. When you have a small group of elites deciding the go forward path of any large economy, the results will be unstable... as the mistakes of these elites compound expect China to cannibalize more foreign business interests. I have no idea when this will happen, but I'd bet a few bucks that it will happen eventually.
And how are capitalistic societies not top-down ?
What percentage of the US population belongs to the political class?
What percentage of the US population can reach wall street?
That is what I would call a small eli
Makes complete sense (Score:4, Informative)
Not exactly surprising, but not for corporate espionage.
Don't know if you noticed, but maps are militarily significant. If you have people providing maps of your country, using the gps on phones within your country to improve the quality of the maps, locate places, it's in your interest to have influence over them, particularly if your biggest competitor owns the satellites and the services run from within their borders.
I mean come on, the howls of outrage and surprise are laughably naive.
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What's the difference between corporate espionage and a joint venture? In the former, information is transferred without the knowledge of one party, in the second both parties know what information is transferred.
What the Chinese government wants to do is to outsource its corporate espionage to the foreign companies. Smart idea. China knows it has a quarter of the world market and that execs are drooling at the prospect of instantly increasing their market by at least 25%. Very few companies can resist the
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but I would claim that the government is encouraging/requiring/enabling corporate espionage
What if it's just a counterattack against Google after the whole moving to Hong Kong thing?
Espionage my ass... (Score:4, Interesting)
It's about control. They aren't trying to "find out" how Google does google maps, they are trying to create an in-country choke point. This choke point will choke the money from leaving the country _and_ choke the information reaching the citizens.
Imagine if you were the Bureau of Stuff of Some Country, and you could take 50% of the profit on every enterprise taking place on the internet in Some Country. Imagine that you can do it by letting random enterprises do random things, and then only attach yourself once a random thing had proven profitable. This is the money half of the equation.
Now imagine you are the Bureau of No of Some Country, and you could interpose yourself at the source of each new flow of information instead of needing a "wall" to selectively keep a flood of random Yes from entering your country. You could pre-impose your No well before it became a possibility.
The control item is particularly important here because you cannot _firewall_ Google maps selectively.
Say you are a Chinese dude, and you know that "something prohibited" is right north of something else. you can get that map of something prohibited by searching for that something else and then scrolling around. If china can require the information be brokered locally, the "Mass Government Grave" won't be blacked out or filtered, it will be listed as "Xue's Farm" or "Rocky Hillside Funtime Panda Reserve". Likewise for the "Comrades of the Party Beer Volcano and Free Hooker Forest".
The problem with censoring maps by exclusion is that even the holes provide information. If you cannot control and _edit_ a map at the source, you cannot _believably_ obscure what you want obscured.
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The AFP also reported that 'Foreign firms wanting to provide mapping and surveying services in China are required to set up joint ventures or partnerships with local firms.'
China and other countries (Qatar) seem to have these kinds of joint venture requirements on a lot of industries/markets. What I don't get is why we can't get the WTO to smack them down. If the US enacted laws that required say, Lenovo, to do all its US business through a US-owned intermediary, you know there'd be a raft of WTO complaints.
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Do they have street view cars as well?
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... or maybe just a desire to cut costs going forward without losing functionality?
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That would explain the terrible driving.
BAZINGA!
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You realize the Chinese have spy satellites too, right? Try adjusting your tinfoil hat till the voices stop.
But....they won't stop! Can i call the CIA for home repair or something? No wait.... that's what they want me to do isn't it....
No Surprise (Score:5, Funny)
No surprise here. If doing business in China is about one thing, it's about greasing as many palms as possible. Don't forget to mention the bribes to be paid to local officials.
Doing business in China is almost as bad as doing business in Chicago or New Jersey... almost.
Good ol protectionism (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, it's called diplomacy. Kissinger wrote a good book on it. Your aim is not to make the world fair for everyone but to make it best for yourself. Learn to politic.
Re:Good ol protectionism (Score:5, Insightful)
Your aim is not to make the world fair for everyone but to make it best for yourself. Learn to politic.
I can see how that would work out great for the world. The only reason that appeals to fairness have any effect is that people actually care about actual fairness. Cynicism and resignation have never gotten anything worthwhile in this world. Diplomacy aside, protectionism is bullshit by and large, and China needs to be called on it just like we do.
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Oh, yes, a leader should aim to be loved as well as feared, but it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. As long as he avoids hatred [constitution.org].
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Better idea, kill the bastards that think this way.
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Yes, kill everyone who is evil. Then only good people remain. Tell me how that's likely to work out, using historical examples.
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So it worked out tautologically well?
Re:Good ol protectionism (Score:4, Interesting)
If so, they're just doing their jobs, more likely their aiding industrial espionage.
In all seriousness, Google can and should file a WTO complaint against China here.
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How do you think they came up to speed so fast on the intertubes? copy everyone else, then adapt and improve. I learnt myself scriptimocations thusly!
Still, I have to admire their balls at making that ridiculous demand. I am going to start using China's methods to better my own life; to wit => I hereby demand that all banks wishing to do business with me keep all of their monies in my mattress! This is not a request!
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I hereby demand that all banks wishing to do business with me keep all of their monies in my mattress! This is not a request!
That doesn't work so well unless you, like China, have something that everyone wants. China has cheap labor and makes a bunch of stuff. Oh, and they have a HUGE market. Hence everyone wants to do business with them. What do you have to offer that all the banks want?
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A decent credit score.
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Why doesn't Google (or any other foreign firm, for that matter) have a WTO claim against China regarding the need for local partners?
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how about because other countries do EXACTLY the same thing, this is only news because it is google. countries all over the world (including the US) have restrictions on everything from foreign investment, foreign ownership and foreign imports and many even with the exact same laws requiring local partners in many sectors.
Which is why the WTO has this thing called Most Favoured Nation [wikipedia.org] status. It's designed to say that you've got to do unto all others as you do unto your best friend. In a nutshell, the most favourable trading conditions (i.e. for them, not you) that you've negotiated to date with other nations must be made available to any other nation that asks. In practical terms, it's done a lot to undermine the kind of protectionist practices such as the above.
I won't pretend to be a trade expert, but I strongly suspect t
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Neither China nor Russia proclaim themselves to the world to be beacons of freedom and equality.
The US put the bar for itself about as high as it'll go and is being called on it constantly. Unfair? Perhaps, but them's the stakes.
Then again, as John Oliver put it so nicely earlier this week, for a 3rd world country you're really doing quite well ;-)
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"None can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton.
It seems states behave the same way.
Actually the USA is precisely the same - they constantly preach free trade, but will they let Australia sell them farm produce ... er, no. (Mind you, Australia's a bit reluctant to accept foreign farm produce - the claim that we are free of many of the world's crop diseases (no Dutch Elm disease, for example) and would like to stay that is terribly convenient [true, but re
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Dare I ask what you expect them to do?
Every single country does this to the best of their ability.
I'm Canadian and in the same press conference, we'll hear politicians cry about 'Buy American' and how it blocks Canadian business who love to export to the US... then they will institute their own 'Buy Canadian' provisions.
There is no such thing as free trade when it comes to nation states.
I fully support free trade, but not the managed free trade we have today that only seems to disadvantage western workers.
H
This is a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
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simply impose a slowly increasing tariff
No need. China is about to experience a labor revolution such as has never occurred anywhere in Asia. Major manufacturers (Toyota, Nissan, Foxconn, etc.) are experiencing labor strikes and capitulating with large wage increases. The best thing we can do is continue to buy their stuff and fuel their demand for labor. Once their working class feels its oats it will overrun the county and China will cease to provide an endless horizon of subsistence wages.
This won't be students in a square with microphones
Re:This is a joke (Score:4, Informative)
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You will note that the strikes are ONLY occurring against foreign companies. Not a one on local companies.
Reported by? People who have an interest in telling you all about local chinese companies you've never heard of?
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>>You will note that the strikes are ONLY occurring against foreign companies. Not a one on local companies.
You don't follow Chinese news, then?
Strikes occur all over China, all the time. Slashdot only covers stories like the Foxconn suicides, but it's not at all accurate to say that strikes are only occurring against foreign companies.
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Foxconn is considering pulling out of China and just automating of bunch of their operations:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=foxconn+pulling+out+of+china [google.com]
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Yeah, but in many cases the Western companies' management doesn't care, because they're focused on returns over the short to mid term.
And why not? Why not give away the company's crown jewels, if you don't see the downside for another three or four years? You might even reduce costs over that timeframe by taking a Chinese partner. If you're the kind of investor who holds stocks for less than a year, why would you care? If you are the kind of investor who rebalances his portfolio every year or so, you mi
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The other three BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India) aren't going to step on China's toes. On the one hand they want to emulate Chinese growth, but at the same time they wish to avoid China's growing pains (even if they are usually kept under wraps). Don't expect a lot of help here -- the best the "West" can expect is for them to sit and watch.
Mal-2
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People who think changing the exchange rate will make a difference are ignorant. The initial effect will be to send factories to other impoverished countries, it's not going to bring back manufacturing jobs to America. The secondary effect will be to drive down factory wages within Ch
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For all the PLA's size, it must be remembered that, compared to Western armies, it is woefully under-equipped. While having a lot of cannon fodder can be useful, as was seen during the Korean War, a determined army with a skillful commander and good armaments is more than a match for such an army.
China is racing to modernize the PLA, but it has been in that race for sixty years. Besides, it's questionable in a modern conflict how having tons of infantry will help you when a good chunk of the war would hap
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They have multiple space stations going up, all controlled by the PLA. Only the first one will allow none chinese on-board. The others are said to only allow Chinese military on-board.
They are hard at work on Lasers on the ground fo
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They have multiple space stations going up, all controlled by the PLA.
I call bullshit. Just because some scientist or CCP apparatchik bragged in an interview with state-controlled media about China's glorious planes to colonize space, doesn't mean it's going to happen. Back in 2002 some Chinese space scientist was claiming that they'd have a manned moon landing and possibly even the start of a lunar base by 2010, which led to credulous stories in the BBC and other Western media. What we're seeing now is
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http://www.mda.mil/news/10news0002.html [mda.mil]
Airborne Laser Test Bed Successful in Lethal Intercept Experiment
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LOL (Score:1)
fast forward to 2013.
After Google's mapping service failing to gain much market share in China, Google decides to pull out of China (again) because of censorship (again).
But... (Score:1)
US should respond (Score:1, Insightful)
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Another Grab at intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not even a very well veiled attempt to get any company that wants to do business in China to open up all of their source code and "hand the keys to the kingdom" to the Chinese government.
Ironically I bet there are companies that carry a big IP hammer to beat up the rest of the world with will be beating down the doors to become slavering lapdogs of China for a chance at the profits pie. Of course China will say "you companies just do not understand China so we need to repackage everything you do to fit our "culture"". What they are really meaning is that "Give us all of the stuff and we will let you play in our sandbox... until we can reverse engineer your application or system and stick a "Made in China" label on it. The we will give you the boot or make the conditions so impossible for you to do business you will run out with your tails between your legs".
Re:Another Grab at intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony is that companies that do everything China wants often get little in return. Look at Microsoft. They gave China the source code to their software. Gave them nearly free licensing of Windows and they hardly make any money there at all!
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/1832381/Gates-Lets-China-Peek-Through-Windows.htm [internetnews.com]
and now in 2010....
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-24/microsoft-s-ballmer-says-china-piracy-is-a-problem-update1-.html [businessweek.com]
Open Street Map (Score:3, Informative)
This law has big implications for open mapping projects like Open Street Map. Have a look at the warning on the China page for OSM [openstreetmap.org]:
This [law] to outlaw the entire OSM project, and any participation or contribution. ... People visiting China would be well advised to avoid overtly wandering around looking at GPS units, and avoid carrying OSM related documents in your luggage. Or you might prefer to abide by these strange Chinese laws, and just not do any mapping there at all.
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What if Google doesn't care? (Score:2)
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They can't. It's just a bullshit country's attempt to claim copyright over the layout of their roads and cities. You can't claim ownership over the view of your land from space.
This is actually in the same realm has claiming ownership of the rights on translating foreign languages in copyrighted works. Yes, you can sell the right to make the "official" version of something. But to me, there is something implicitly wrong about saying that if someone else tells someone what such-and-such sentence means in ano
No GeoTagging then (Score:1)
It sounds to me that this could mean: he got a caning because he took 195 photos with GPS logging and looked up 80 of them.
Uninformed Projection as usual (Score:2)
In China, accurate maps are military secrets. There is no public USGS. Even Google Maps does not provide proper coordinates. This map phobia has to do with some ancient story about a stolen map. Indeed, being in possession of accurate maps of European countries could get you arrested or execute
Tibet (Score:3, Insightful)
All comments so far are about economic/IP aspects. What about the political/cultural aspect of mapping? China could use this policy to enforce its preferred representation of the Tibet area. Like: replace all traditional Tibet names with new Chinese ones.
As an amateur photogapher... (Score:3, Interesting)
As an amateur photographer who happens to carry an AMOD GPS logging device with me everywhere I go (to geotag my photos), I'm thinking that maybe China wouldn't be the brightest idea for me visit-wise. (I guess in a way it's a good thing I probably can't afford such a trip anytime soon)
Basically, I'm guessing that if the Chinese government is that concerned about folks mapping things, they're probably going to take a very dim view of geotagged photos as well. I guess (if I screw up my world-view enough) I could sort of see why a totalitarian government could be very concerned about the "dangers" of such information. After all, if I have a photo showing some seriously poor village on the edge of survival, but tag it as being somewhere that the official propaganda says is an economic dynamo, it kind of exposes the lie. It's far easier to just step on my neck with their jack boots.
On the other hand, I would point out that gps loggers these days are very small and compact and don't actually require you to be walking around with big, obvious "HEY I'M IN UR BASE RECORDING UR COORDINATES" equipment... It seems to me that unless you tightly control where a tourist can go and what they can see (which I assume China does to some extent), the information WILL get out.
Truthfully, there isn't that much of a real national security issue anyway... Satellite imagery for ever square foot of the Earth is available... maybe not to super-high resolution in every corner yet, but it's getting there. An invading army doesn't need to know the name of the street to bomb it. This is purly "national security" from the viewpoint of a very paranoid totalitarian regime.
Re:Wait! -- What's that? (Score:4, Interesting)
Frankly I'm beginning not to care. There's enough Chinese that if they got the guts tomorrow they could wipe out the regime, including the PLA, in about fifteen minutes (there would probably be a few tens of million dead, but Mao killed more than that with his incredibly retarded economic policies during the 1950s). People too cowardly to tear every Communist Party member's head off deserve the kind of rule the Party gives them.
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You do realise that after the opium wars and colonisation period, they're far more pissed at the West and Japan then at their own leaders?
We've been doing this PR crap here in the West for centuries now. It really isn't hard to deflect the rage of the mob towards the outside enemy. And as your argument goes, there's enough Chinese to wipe US and most of EU regimes.
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Enough Chinese people, but not enough logistics.
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There aren't enough boats to mount an invasion. China could go nuclear on the West's ass, I suppose, but they certainly don't possess enough nukes to do it thoroughly, and as badly damaged as we would be, China would be wiped out when we struck back.
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Russia: Entire middle Asian part of Russia has already been effectively chinified. Read on tolls they are forced to place on raw materials extraction to at least somehow prevent essential strip-mining and strip-deforestation going there. Chinese have Russia by the balls already, it's just a quiet "we're taking over by breeding with you" kind of takeover for now.
US: Many of the chinese minority there aren't exactly happy with US itself (hello chinks). You'll notice many going to their parents' homeland for a
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Frankly I'm beginning not to care. There's enough Chinese that if they got the guts tomorrow they could wipe out the regime, including the PLA, in about fifteen minutes (there would probably be a few tens of million dead, but Mao killed more than that with his incredibly retarded economic policies during the 1950s). People too cowardly to tear every Communist Party member's head off deserve the kind of rule the Party gives them.
There's three explanations.
1. They're too scared to fight the system. That's your explanation.
2. They're too lazy to fight the system.
3. They're happy with the system. This is what I've been led to believe.
There's a lot of "Yay, China!" sentiment amongst the common people over there. Sure, you'll have the occasional dissident but for the most part they're drinking the kool-aid and enjoying the powdered lead, just like we do here in the States.
Re:Wait! -- What's that? (Score:5, Insightful)
People too cowardly to tear every Communist Party member's head off deserve the kind of rule the Party gives them.
What a brutish approach to politics."So a few million die" - so why haven't you resorted to violence against anything your government does that you don't like? I'm sure you could drum up enough of a local militia to send a message. I mean you clearly don't fear death or arrest or abuse.
When the strong oppress the weak, saying the weak deserve it because they are weak makes you sound like the biggest bigot ever and is incredibly short-sighted. That's the kind of attitude that promotes slavery and abuse of women. If you don't want to be grouped with those people, you better find a way to defend that claim or retract it.
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I never said the Chinese were unique. Germans, Russians, Greeks, English, a whole assortment of people have submitted themselves, at times quite willfully, to dictators. In fact, I'd say the last three hundred years, largely since the Glorious Revolution, have been anomalous. The fact remains that until a nation says "Fuck you" and proceeds to kill or drive out the dictators, they're going to have to live with it, and if they don't want to drive out the dictators out of fear of personal safety, well, the
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It ended once and for all in Anglo-Saxon realms the notion of absolutism. It took another couple of centuries for the franchise to be expanded, but it marks the overthrow of absolute monarchy, unlimited executive exercise of power, and ushered in the rule of constitutional law.
China doesn't even enjoy the limited rights that the Bill of Rights, 1689 delivered.
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What a brutish approach to politics."So a few million die" - so why haven't you resorted to violence against anything your government does that you don't like?
I don't know about you, but if the government does something I don't like, I can peacefully protest without being hauled off or driven over with a tank [wikimedia.org]. Perhaps MightyMartian is lucky enough to live in a country where it is unnecessary to resort to violence in order to protest against the government. When you have a government that won't use violent force against protesters you get the million man march instead of the Boston tea party.
When the strong oppress the weak and no one does anything about it, it's
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That's the kind of attitude that promotes slavery and abuse of women.
It appears that Godwin's law needs a corollary. In the few thousand years of "civilization" slavery has only been a dirty word for about 200 years. Abuse of women? Women aren't helpless. [dvmen.org] I must say I am surprised you did not mention genocide and those darn Nazis. If you ever want to make a point referencing genocide as a shock tactic, you might want to mention the British. They are the only one to have committed a successful genocide [wikipedia.org] in modern history.
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That's not brutish - it depends on the desired outcome. Walter Duranty retains his Pulitzer Prize to this day for covering up the deaths of a few million people. Don't be so quick to judge.
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Seems to me that in this case "the weak" are clearly not that unhappy with the rulling of the "strong".
As long as China continues to grow fast from the poor Asian country it was 50 years ago, most chinese people will happilly accept the "excentricies" of the local political and judiciary systems (besides, Democracy does not magically make a system fairer or more honest, there are plenty of corrupt democratic countries out there) - after all, for most people in China, their life is way much better than it wa
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>>People too cowardly to tear every Communist Party member's head off deserve the kind of rule the Party gives them.
Why on earth would they do that?
The party line, and what the people honestly and truly believe for the most part, is that "China isn't perfect, but it's getting better."
When I visited China, people were actually very proud of their country's progress in the last 20 years. While there's a lot that could be said about a lot of things, I think there's very little support for a popular upris
Re:Two Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Once their money comes back into balance with the dollar, they will collapse
Once their money comes back into balance with the dollar, you'll find the US economy will collapse as a major amount of the US national debt is held by the Chinese. It started off as a cheap way to fund American consumerism without having to worry - after all, China buys your bonds and you spend the cash they just gave you on Chinese goods - wins all round!
But.. that means they hold an enormous amount on US debt. If they decided to sell it on, both Yuan and the dollar would take an almighty hit - enough to pretty much collapse the US economy. Fortunately the Yuan is pegged to the dollar and doesn't float about - which could cause a bit of a collapse in either currency depending on which way it moved,
See, if the Yuan devalued against the dollar, they'd stop buying US debt. And so the cost of selling that debt would increase - the US needs to keep selling debt partly to fund the previous debt repayments - if the interest payments went up... you can see that wouldn't be good for the US. Considering how huge the debt is, that wouldn't be good at all.
Also, if the dollar didn't buy as much yuan as before, that would mean inflation for the US - no more cheap goods to buy.
So really, the US needs China to keep the dollar high. If they stop, you, them, and almost everybody is screwed. (Ok, maybe the Eurozone would come out of it better - assuming it doesn't collapse itself)
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Even the majority of the economists do not sound so alarmists about this. The reason is that if China were to slowly allow it to float (raise it slowly by 40% then finally allow the true float), then both nations will do just fine. The reason is that it will give America time to bring back jobs and then tax them. And China will still accumulate dollars and will want to invest them somewhere.
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Re: (Score:1)
Sounds good to me...