Canadian Foreign Policies & Affairs

[someone123]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Social progress has always been driven by radicals who have to convince the masses of the justice of their movements. Suburban middle managers in Alabama in the 1960s would have been just fine continuing with separate drinking fountains.

Maybe the the radicals are where the rubber hits the road but there has to be an environment conducive to change and that is determined largely by geopolitics and technology. I don't think civil rights in the US happened in the 1960's because radicals just happened to pick those specific social changes at that time. The 60's were a time of dramatic economic change in the US.

You'd think that the millions of Chinese students in foreign universities over the years might be infected by our freedoms and clamour for the same once they return home, but they don't. We Westerners have a very parochial and exaggerated estimation of how appealing our culture is.

My argument is not that they'll envy our freedoms and topple the government. It's that China can't operate a repressive regime and compete optimally over the long term because it's not possible to run a repressive and economically dynamic country at the same time. There needs to be a way for successful companies and ideas to grow and bad ones to die, and having a strong man in charge of a patronage system is at odds with that.

If the current Chinese government rules with an iron fist for 30 years they'll have to be happy with their stolen 2010's IP and Western countries will continue to shift trade to other countries. I think we've more or less hit the peak of China getting preferential trading treatment while behaving terribly.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by someone123

...it's not possible to run a repressive and economically dynamic country at the same time.

I used to think this was a truism, but I don't think the evidence supports it anymore.

Originally Posted by someone123

There needs to be a way for successful companies and ideas to grow and bad ones to die, and having a strong man in charge of a patronage system is at odds with that.

But China is Communist in name only. It's fully capitalist, with competing companies and everything. It's got all of the tangibles and intangibles you need to grow companies as big as you like and come up with all of the innovations you could ever wish for, it's just that you can't ever say anything bad about the government or that anything in China is inferior to what they have in other countries.

We think it's hard to juggle this, but it's not. You can easily find the capital to employ geniuses to invent a better mousetrap while keeping your mouth shut about contentious political issues. People do it all the time. The engineers working on Apollo 11 weren't marching in the streets for black rights or against the Vietnam War. Just as many innovative inventions and amazing breakthroughs have come from Europe as have been produced in the US where the huddled masses yearn to breathe free (admittedly most of Europe isn't all that "unfree").

One thing we Chinese-to-English translators know is that we often encounter terms in Chinese without long-established English equivalents due to the decline in manufacturing in North America and the rise in scientific and medical research in China. English is still the default language of, well, everything, but my guess is that over the next couple decades Chinese will probably overtake Japanese as the most important Asian language for science and technology (is Japanese currently second to English for this, or is German more important than Japanese? Dunno...)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by rousseau

It's got all of the tangibles and intangibles you need to grow companies as big as you like and come up with all of the innovations you could ever wish for, it's just that you can't ever say anything bad about the government or that anything in China is inferior to what they have in other countries.

Sometimes you need to say bad things about the government and criticize your own country because they are dysfunctional. If public, wide-scale criticism isn't allowed, problems will persist and growth will be stunted. There's no such thing as separate social and economic spheres of criticism either.

No country is perfect. In Canada we have a lot of oligopolies that are cozy with the government and are inefficient. We pay the price for that. These are anchors weighing the country down. They have killed some countries like Soviet Union.

There's not a lot of evidence of China developing new technology that is more advanced than the stuff they've stolen from the United States. If they were creating better products on their own you'd expect them to have had a bigger impact on international markets by now. Instead a lot of what they are producing is still lower quality stuff with extra surveillance, censorship, and DDOS attack functionality built in. And we've probably hit peak IP theft opportunity already.

[wave46]

Originally Posted by rousseau

But China is Communist in name only. It's fully capitalist, with competing companies and everything. It's got all of the tangibles and intangibles you need to grow companies as big as you like and come up with all of the innovations you could ever wish for, it's just that you can't ever say anything bad about the government or that anything in China is inferior to what they have in other countries.

We think it's hard to juggle this, but it's not. You can easily find the capital to employ geniuses to invent a better mousetrap while keeping your mouth shut about contentious political issues. People do it all the time. The engineers working on Apollo 11 weren't marching in the streets for black rights or against the Vietnam War. Just as many innovative inventions and amazing breakthroughs have come from Europe as have been produced in the US where the huddled masses yearn to breathe free (admittedly most of Europe isn't all that "unfree").

I think the problem becomes that in a democratic nation, if the leader is incompetent, they can be removed by the people before the damage becomes critical. *looks to the south*

Authoritarian regimes lack that 'correction factor'. So, you end up with leaders like Mao and Brezhnev who in the former's case lives long enough to cause huge damage to society or the latter who presides until problems become unmanageable. We'll see if President Xi goes that way or not.

I think the current regime in China has the advantage of economic growth and reaps the benefits of that economic growth and that underpins its legitimacy. The monumental cruelties the Chinese have endured at the hands of their government demonstrate that they - as a culture - can tolerate a lot of suffering. However, there is a generation raised today that has faced much less struggle than generations past, so I don't know if they'll tolerate the same struggles their ancestors did.

I admit to not knowing Chinese culture very well and their system of capitalism without the messiness of democracy does look more 'efficient'. I'm just not sure how stable it is. The Soviet Union looked to be a permanent fixture until it wasn't. I also admit that my biases lend me to believe that our system is better - not without justification IMO.

[headhorse]

Originally Posted by rousseau

I used to think this was a truism, but I don't think the evidence supports it anymore.


But China is Communist in name only. It's fully capitalist, with competing companies and everything. It's got all of the tangibles and intangibles you need to grow companies as big as you like and come up with all of the innovations you could ever wish for, it's just that you can't ever say anything bad about the government or that anything in China is inferior to what they have in other countries.

We think it's hard to juggle this, but it's not. You can easily find the capital to employ geniuses to invent a better mousetrap while keeping your mouth shut about contentious political issues. People do it all the time. The engineers working on Apollo 11 weren't marching in the streets for black rights or against the Vietnam War. Just as many innovative inventions and amazing breakthroughs have come from Europe as have been produced in the US where the huddled masses yearn to breathe free (admittedly most of Europe isn't all that "unfree").

One thing we Chinese-to-English translators know is that we often encounter terms in Chinese without long-established English equivalents due to the decline in manufacturing in North America and the rise in scientific and medical research in China. English is still the default language of, well, everything, but my guess is that over the next couple decades Chinese will probably overtake Japanese as the most important Asian language for science and technology (is Japanese currently second to English for this, or is German more important than Japanese? Dunno...)

not going to get into a debate whether china is socialist or communist, but the most important industries are still majority government owned and managed AND there is no such thing as private property in China (all land is held by the state), only personal property. two major things that we don't have as part of our system that allows for much more stability.

[misher]

Originally Posted by headhorse

not going to get into a debate whether china is socialist or communist, but the most important industries are still majority government owned and managed AND there is no such thing as private property in China (all land is held by the state), only personal property. two major things that we don't have as part of our system that allows for much more stability.

Last I checked China has a leasehold system similar to Canada's so you own the lease and the building for 99 years?
This provides a lot of our affordable housing.

[CityTech]

Technically Canada does not have private property at all. All land is the property of the Queen. "Land ownership" in Canada is really just perpetual leasing from the Queen.

[milomilo]

Land ownership is a fictional concept regardless, so yeah it's just semantics. I'm pretty sure I prefer the western fiction than the Chinese one though.

[whatnext]

Wow, Stephen Harper actually did something I approve of!

China’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry response on Monday to a Taiwan visit by former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, with Beijing saying it has made its displeasure known to Ottawa.

Mr. Harper became the first former Canadian prime minister to set foot in Taipei last week when he spoke at a conference organized by a government-backed think tank. He also met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The former Conservative leader said he travelled in a personal capacity, promoting his consulting business and a book he published last year.

But China says it vigorously opposes the trip, which observers said provided a measure of support to Ms. Tsai, who has watched Taiwan lose seven diplomatic partners during her presidency.

“China expresses strong dissatisfaction with the relevant Canadian person’s visit to Taiwan and has lodged serious representations to the Canadian side,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement to The Globe and Mail....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/worl...sit-to-taiwan/

Why should any Canadian give a flying fuck what China disapproves of?

[misher]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Wow, Stephen Harper actually did something I approve of!

China’s Foreign Ministry issued an angry response on Monday to a Taiwan visit by former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, with Beijing saying it has made its displeasure known to Ottawa.

Mr. Harper became the first former Canadian prime minister to set foot in Taipei last week when he spoke at a conference organized by a government-backed think tank. He also met Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. The former Conservative leader said he travelled in a personal capacity, promoting his consulting business and a book he published last year.

But China says it vigorously opposes the trip, which observers said provided a measure of support to Ms. Tsai, who has watched Taiwan lose seven diplomatic partners during her presidency.

“China expresses strong dissatisfaction with the relevant Canadian person’s visit to Taiwan and has lodged serious representations to the Canadian side,” China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement to The Globe and Mail....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/worl...sit-to-taiwan/

Why should any Canadian give a flying fuck what China disapproves of?

I know you hate Chinese so it must grate on you that the party that has the strongest anti-Chinese stance is the CPC while the most friendly party to the Chinese is the Liberals.

It really goes to show you that every party has things we all would approve of. No party is inherently "bad", your basically choosing between different packages, some things you want and some you don't.

I'd be supportive of a party that just sends out multiple choice sheets to Canadians and bases its platform on their feedback.

[whatnext]

Somebody should tell Ken Chiu CPC candidate in Richmond that Scheer has pledged to get tough on China then:

...In criticizing the Liberals’ record of dealing with China, Chiu called the arrest of Meng Wanzhou was the “last straw” that broke the camel’s back, and that relations were already strained after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau travelled to China and lectured its government on the environment, women’s rights and labour rights..

https://www.richmond-news.com/federa...ond-1.23963819

[whatnext]

The US House of Representatives passed a bill this week commending Canada for its detention of Meng Wanzhou:

...“The House of Representatives commends the Government of Canada for upholding the rule of law and complying with its international legal obligations, including those pursuant to the Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and Canada,” according to the non-binding house resolution, which passed on Tuesday...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...n-huaweis-meng

[misher]

Originally Posted by whatnext

The US House of Representatives passed a bill this week commending Canada for its detention of Meng Wanzhou:

...“The House of Representatives commends the Government of Canada for upholding the rule of law and complying with its international legal obligations, including those pursuant to the Extradition Treaty Between the United States of America and Canada,” according to the non-binding house resolution, which passed on Tuesday...

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...n-huaweis-meng

Meanwhile no actual reward or trade concessions given.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by misher

Meanwhile no actual reward or trade concessions given.

Why should there be? Unlike most countries, for better or worse, Canada actually respects rules. Although some kind words from the USA government earlier wouldn't have hurt.

[misher]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Why should there be? Unlike most countries, for better or worse, Canada actually respects rules. Although some kind words from the USA government earlier wouldn't have hurt.

We went to bat for the Americans they could at least throw us a bone to counter the hurt we receive from China's reaction. Without a reward it means we are less likely to do so in the future.

And since when do we respect rules or the law. Our PM got SNC off breaking the law twice and he himself broke the law. He's also quite happy to propose a speculation tax on foreigners when this is against the law, the WTO, and our trade agreements. Canadian's only care about the law when its politically correct to do so, the minute its unpopular then support will surge to break it. Look at our military equipment trade deal with Saudi Arabia, almost half our population supported breaking it.

The Ethics Commissioner has released her report on Justin Trudeau’s Bahamas vacation to a billionaire’s private island, and found Trudeau committed multiple violations of federal law::

Accepting gifts that could influence decision-making;
Not recusing himself from discussions that could further private interests;
Failing to arrange his private affairs to avoid this opportunity; and
Accepting travel on a non-commercial aircraft.

This makes Justin Trudeau the first sitting Prime Minister in Canadian history to be guilty of violating federal law.

Trudeau also said that while he accepts the report put out by ethics commissioner Mario Dion, which found Trudeau broke the Conflict of Interest Act, he disagreed with the conclusion Dion drew that Trudeau should not have been putting forward any considerations he wanted Wilson-Raybould to evaluate.

OTTAWA – Former cabinet minister Jane Philpott is asking the Speaker of the House of Commons to examine whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the law when he expelled her and Jody Wilson-Raybould from the Liberal caucus.

Despite new rules laid out in the Parliament of Canada Act, MPs can’t be kicked out of caucus without a vote, and yet Trudeau made a unilateral decision last week to eject her and Wilson-Raybould, Philpott declared Tuesday as she asked Speaker Geoff Regan to declare that their privileges were violated.

A set of amendments to the act, spearheaded by Conservative MP Michael Chong, was passed in 2015 in an effort to make it more difficult for MPs to be removed from caucus – part of an effort to decentralize political power on Parliament Hill and put it back in the hands of rank-and-file legislators.

Lets just be open and honest, Canadian's don't really care if we break the law. Its never been the priority here. I'm not just saying this about the Liberals, if Harper was still in and broke the law to keep Jihad Jack out of Canada, Canadians would cheer.

[whatnext]

Indoctrinate 'em when they're young...

RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) – A Richmond high school has axed an assignment after a picture of it was shared on social media, prompting criticism it amounts to brainwashing and pro-China propaganda.

The assignment, given to Grade 10, 11, and 12 Mandarin classes at Steveston-London Secondary School, revolved around the movie “My People, My Country,” which was released last month to commemorate 70 years of the People’s Republic of China. The movie focuses on seven memorial moments since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China and is described as “a gift to every Chinese person living in the country and overseas.”

The assignment involved answering a number of “reflection questions” about the movie. A picture of some of the questions was shared on Facebook by a pro-Hong Kong Facebook group, which suggested students were shown the whole movie. The group asked those reading the post to complain to the school board....

https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/10...na-propaganda/

[Dengler Avenue]

I just learned about the Russian-African summit that Putin held in Sochi yesterday. Now things just took a nasty turn...

[misher]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-h...-idUSKBN1X706F

Honestly these protesters are losing my support. I don't support firebombing local businesses and transit.

Hong Kong enters recession, official says, as protests again erupt in flames

Black-clad and masked demonstrators set fire to shops and hurled petrol bombs at police on Sunday following a now-familiar pattern, with police responding with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

TV footage showed protesters, who streamed into the Kowloon hotel and shopping artery of Nathan Road on Sunday, setting fire to street barricades and squirting petrol from plastic bottles on to fires at subway entrances amid running battles with police.

At one station, activists rolled a flaming metal barrel down a long staircase toward police below.

“The blow (from the protests) to our economy is comprehensive,” Paul Chan said in a blog post, adding that a preliminary estimate for third-quarter GDP on Thursday would show two successive quarters of contraction - the technical definition of a recession.

He also said it would be “extremely difficult” to achieve the government’s pre-protest forecast of 0-1 % annual economic growth.

The HK Police have shown remarkable restraint and I commend them for not shooting people who are asking for it. The movies are right, the HK police are the best in the world.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN1X71AN

In other news, hopefully the US and China can now sign a trade deal. Given how weak the world economy has gotten I feel like this deal is the only chance for us to avoid a recession.

Leaders of the world’s two biggest economies are working to agree on the text for a “Phase 1” trade agreement announced by Trump on Oct. 11. Trump has said he hopes to sign the deal with China’s President Xi Jinping next month at a summit in Chile.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by misher

Honestly these protesters are losing my support. I don't support firebombing local businesses and transit.

The HK Police have shown remarkable restraint and I commend them for not shooting people who are asking for it. The movies are right, the HK police are the best in the world.

In other news, hopefully the US and China can now sign a trade deal. Given how weak the world economy has gotten I feel like this deal is the only chance for us to avoid a recession.

Always amusing what you choose to focus on. Here's more from that article:

The programming staff union of public broadcaster RTHK said on Monday it had called on police to identify officers who “attacked and ripped the face mask” off one of its journalists on Sunday. It said she was wearing a reflective vest clearly identifying herself as a journalist.

Pictures circulating online suggested she was wearing a gas mask, to protect against tear gas and pepper spray. Ordinary face masks were banned this month under a resurrected colonial-era emergency law.

Hong Kong Free Press, an online news service, called for the release of a freelance photographer arrested on Sunday after she had asked to see a police officer’s warrant card.

Anybody who wasn't born yesterday and believes in democracy would never support China.

As for trade deals, Trump the "great negotiator" is going to stop the dumb trade war he started leading into the 2020 election so he can proclaim himself the genius hero. If he's still in office...

[misher]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Always amusing what you choose to focus on. Here's more from that article:



Anybody who wasn't born yesterday and believes in democracy would never support China.

As for trade deals, Trump the "great negotiator" is going to stop the dumb trade war he started leading into the 2020 election so he can proclaim himself the genius hero. If he's still in office...

Anyone in a democracy should be against firebombing. Hell anyone that is a human being should be against firebombing, only a complete monster would support it. Burning a police officer alive or burning down businesses is bad no matter the situation. Speaking out against violence done by a small minority of protesters does not mean you support China. A "good cause" does not excuse bad acts, only terrorists and radicals think so. Would you support environmentalists if they bombed a gas station? No, because no matter the situation it is never acceptable. If this were America or Canada the police would be shooting people who were throwing Molotov cocktails at them. The HK police are showing heroic levels of restraint and I truly do commend them. Any society cannot condone violent protests because the end result will lead to suffering no matter what.

And yes, Trump is doing pretty well popularity-wise. But what matters to Canadians is that the deal is signed and the economy goes on and hopefully that happens.