| ▲ | Insanity 4 hours ago |
| Good. People are sometimes negative or worried about China, with how they spy on people etc. But for most of the western world, the real danger is US and not China. Just think - Canadian, Europeans etc are more likely to go on business travel to the States than China. You can get your phone checked at the border and if you’re not too keen about the US dear leader, that won’t be good for your US admission. Being negative about Xi might have similar results, but less likely in practice. |
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| ▲ | 827a 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| You're right, but only half-way to the most realistic conclusion. Canada is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The US is increasingly hostile, because the US wants control over the warming arctic naval routes and higher border security. Greenland is just a softer target for now. However, turning away from the US (~85% of Canadian trade) to China (~8%) weakens Canada and gives political cover for the US to take further hostile action. There's a game being played that, once you see it, it becomes clear that some world leaders are thinking about 2035, and other world leaders are still in 2015. I don't like it, and I genuinely feel for Canadians; they're a small, inconveniently positioned pawn that is getting caught up in something so much bigger than their country and leadership has the resources to deal with. |
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| ▲ | chroma 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Doesn't that prove too much? For example, North Korea treats their citizens horribly, but since it's not a threat to westerners, would that mean that trade deals with them are acceptable? It's hard for me to come up with a standard that encourages trade with China but discourages trade with North Korea. I'm not saying that trade with the US is therefore a good idea. There are many reasonable moral standards that would forbid trade with both the US & China. |
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| ▲ | mitthrowaway2 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Honestly, the reason that North Korea is embargoed probably has less to do with the way they treat their own citizens, and more to do with them constantly threatening to turn South Korea into a "sea of fire" while lobbing ever-longer-range ballistic missiles over Japan. | |
| ▲ | Insanity 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | NK and China are not at the same level lol - NK is almost an inescapable dictatorship, with routine mistreatment and indoctrination. If that were true, you can claim the current US is 1930s Nazi Germany, with a right wing government using media manipulation and “othering”, in a pseudo dictatorship. Not to mention the US and China use similar “low level” indoctrination strategies (like swearing allegiance to the flag in schools) | | |
| ▲ | chroma 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I never said that North Korea was similar to China. I was simply applying your argument to another country to show how it isn't a good argument for whether or not to trade. |
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| ▲ | lossolo an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Around 100 million Chinese people travel abroad every year, and they all return to their country of their own free will. You can't even leave North Korea without special permission, which only certain workers get. I've been to China, and I'm going again this year, I'm from the EU. The funniest thing is that China's Tier 1 cities are more developed than EU cities and offer a better quality of life. | | |
| ▲ | gattis an hour ago | parent [-] | | nobody equated china to north korea. the post you are replying to applied equivalent logic to an extreme example (north korea) to show more easily that the logic cannot be correct. | | |
| ▲ | lossolo 3 minutes ago | parent [-] | | An extreme example changes the logic here, which basically means it's a bad example. And if we're talking about the logic of this argument, there's no such thing as morality in foreign relations. I don't see any morality when everyone buys oil from Saudi Arabia or Qatar, knowing how they treat their own citizens and who they sponsor. States use the "morality" argument when they need to build a narrative and portray someone as bad/evil to justify actions against them, while the real reason is almost always geopolitical interests or money/resources. |
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| ▲ | azan_ 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Being negative about Xi might have similar results, but less likely in practice. Being negative about Xi has typically much worse in consequence and closer cooperation with China might make it more likely in practice. I'm not saying countries should not cooperate with China, just that your argument is not that great. |
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| ▲ | narrator 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| However, you can't emigrate to China. There are less than 20,000 naturalized citizens in the whole country. You will always be a barbarian, bro. |
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| ▲ | akmarinov 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Didn’t they make it so that citizens of 75 countries can’t emigrate to the US just yesterday? | | |
| ▲ | throw-the-towel 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | None of which is Western. | |
| ▲ | narrator an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can hate the United States all you want, memorize your little red book of Mao, but you still can't become a naturalized citizen in China cause you aren't Chinese by blood. |
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| ▲ | NicoJuicy 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Both are equally bad. The US is just less trustworthy at this point, at least we know china's goal better. Note: both under the current administration |
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| ▲ | lumost 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The US has had two faces for the last generation. Bush jr. dragged the British into Iraq and generally angered the EU. That the next republican president was overtly hostile to the EU is a continuation of the theme. It’s hard to build an alliance when one of the partners flips their fundamental goals every 4 years. | | |
| ▲ | NicoJuicy 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There was not much of a problem with Bush? Current administration is just bat shit crazy and hungry for personal gain. | |
| ▲ | oaiey 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Bush was trusted in Europe. We never felt that he betrayed Europe. There were tough trade deals and stupid wars, but there was never doubt we could rely on the US in this times. It was fine. This started with Trump and Project 2025 and whatever the tea party mixes in there. |
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| ▲ | oaiey 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Both are not friend of EU/Canada right now. But China at least never pretended (or we never saw them like that). The US however was a factual savior, then a close ally and a partner for 85 years! That is roughly 60 years longer than China was a relevant factor in the world order. It is the loss of trust / change which tortures the world. Not the amount of current trust. | |
| ▲ | Insanity 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Both are equally bad in theory. But my point is that (currently) the US would, in practice, negatively impact Canadians and EU more. | |
| ▲ | SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do we know China’s goal better? They seemed quite willing to punt on Hong Kong democracy until 2049, as they originally agreed to, until one day they decided that it was time for democracy to be over. |
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| ▲ | jumpman_miya 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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