549 replies to this topic

[baw1064]

 George Rowell, on 22 December 2020 - 11:34 PM, said:

The people who make rules are not usually personally inconvenienced and are capable of great determination.

So why not just outlaw using heating as long as the temperature is above 0 K.

[George Rowell]

Too broad. That would include power house companies exporters, government offices and the like. Schools are at the bottom end of the pecking order. Besides it is character-building and totally in-line with (very) old fashioned Chinese thinking. It could be fake news too because it sounds just a bit too pat.

Having said that, last year the several-thousand-apartment 'enclave' where I lived, people were made to leave their apartments and put cardboard boxes in one pile, plastic and reusables in another and waste food in another. You were allowed between 7-9am and 7-9pm to do this. If you were late the center was shut. If you were careless or did not know what to do, as I did, you would be traced by cameras and find your rubbish dumped on your apartment door. A well connected contractor who got the refuse contract for the district with 'Re-Cycling' blazed over its vehicles in letters 4' tall, collected the refuse that had been diligently sorted and prepared and - jettisoned it all together at the old dump because the facilities required to process it did not exist. The only thing it served to do, apart from making a few well connected people rich, was to further entrench community control.

A year on, those facilities now probably do exist.

[Traveler]

Oz should limit iron ore exports. That would shutdown China steel production. IIRC, it is sole source of high grade ore. Already price is going up for both coal and ore. So China's import slowdown to OZ coal hasn't had as much of an economic hit as the volume decline would suggest.

[LFC]

That didn't take long.

Quote

The Chinese government sanctioned a slew of former Trump administration officials on Wednesday, minutes after President Biden’s term began.

In a statement that accused those sanctioned of “crazy moves” and “hatred against China,” Beijing slapped former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, 2016 Trump campaign chairman Steven Bannon, and former National Security Advisers John Bolton and Robert C. O’Brien with penalties.

The sanctions bar the officials from traveling to China, Macau, and Hong Kong, and prevent them from doing business with the same. Economic adviser and trade war architect Peter Navarro and former HHS Secretary Alex Azar are also on the list of those sanctioned.

China announced the move within minutes of the officials’ departure from government, and within a day after the now-gone Trump administration sanctioned Beijing for “genocide” of its Uighur minority.

The full list of those sanctioned is unclear, but the statement says that it includes 28 American citizens “who have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and who have been mainly responsible for such U.S. moves on China-related issues.”

[LFC]

China is clearly testing the new administration, especially now that it realizes America's biggest enemy comes from within.

Quote

Six Chinese fighter aircraft and a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan's air defence identification zone on Sunday, the island's defence ministry said, in an unusual admission of U.S. military activity.

Tensions have spiked over the last week or so after Taiwan reported multiple Chinese fighters and bombers flying into the zone last weekend, in an area close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the northern part of the South China Sea.

The Chinese missions coincided with a U.S. aircraft carrier group entering the South China Sea for what the U.S. military termed a routine deployment. The United States has criticised the Chinese flights.

[Bact PhD]

Sigh. Looking bad for Hong Kong:

Quote

Children as young as six are to learn about crimes under Hong Kong's national security law.


Schools will be asked to monitor children's behaviour and report any support for the pro-democracy movement, as part of new education rules.


The national security law was imposed last June with Beijing arguing it was needed to tackle unrest linked to pro-democracy protests in the city.


Thousands of children became involved in the protests.


Hong Kong's education bureau released the guidelines late on Thursday along with an animated video that explains to students what the national security law is.


The law criminalises secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces with the maximum sentence life in prison.


The video, featuring an owl and two students, explains that the national security law has been enacted "for the sake of Hong Kong's continuous development and long-term prosperity".


"We all know Hong Kong is an inalienable part of our country," it tells students.
Primary school students will also be taught how to sing and respect the national anthem and learn about how the People's Liberation Army protects Hong Kong. Older students will learn about the limits of Hong Kong's rights and freedoms.

[LFC]

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-ARe I Really This Stupid?), one of the GOP's "thinkers", believes the way to deal with China is to almost completely withdraw from trade and enter into an economic cold war. Bonus points for his childish brand of patriotic hyperbole.

Quote

Sen. Tom Cotton on Wednesday released perhaps the most detailed strategy by a prominent Republican lawmaker for long-term US-China competition — and it effectively calls for ending the economic relationship between the world’s two richest countries as we know it.

The report — titled “Beat China: Targeted Decoupling and the Economic Long War” — outlines the Arkansas senator’s vision for how the US can outlast Beijing in a Cold War-like struggle. Cotton calls for Washington to sever many of its ties with Chinese industry and society while at the same time investing at home in the scientific, technological, and manufacturing fields China currently dominates. Only then — with the US less dependent on China’s giant economy — can America be more secure in the years to come.

But Cotton’s plan isn’t just aimed at ensuring America’s economic well-being. It seeks to prove that China’s Communist, authoritarian model doesn’t stack up to America’s capitalist, democratic one. Cotton is therefore proposing not only a blueprint for economic warfare, but also a roadmap for defeating China’s regime and triggering its collapse.

“We need to beat this evil empire and consign the Chinese Communists ... to the ash heap of history,” the senator said in a speech detailing his 84-page report at a virtual Reagan Institute event on Thursday. He called the US-China fight a “protracted twilight struggle that will determine the fate of the world.”

Once again we have a Republican with unrealistic policies wrapped in jingoistic flag waving. It's always either a sledgehammer or nothing. The truly sad thing is that Cotton has valid points that we've discussed here at TRS literally for years but he goes right for the maximalist approach. I'd have as much faith in him or any other future Republican president pulling this off in a well thought out fashion as I had in Trump. Ask the agricultural sector how THAT worked out for them.

I do want to point out that I'm amused as f*** that he's talking about more gov't money being put into research and higher education. Gee, Tom. It's "almost" like socialism works. As a "good Republican" I seriously doubt he grasps the need for money to educate the children so they are ready to go to college, handle the advanced learning, and actually do this research.

[golden_valley]

 LFC, on 22 February 2021 - 12:03 PM, said:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-ARe I Really This Stupid?), one of the GOP's "thinkers", believes the way to deal with China is to almost completely withdraw from trade and enter into an economic cold war. Bonus points for his childish brand of patriotic hyperbole.




Once again we have a Republican with unrealistic policies wrapped in jingoistic flag waving. It's always either a sledgehammer or nothing. The truly sad thing is that Cotton has valid points that we've discussed here at TRS literally for years but he goes right for the maximalist approach. I'd have as much faith in him or any other future Republican president pulling this off in a well thought out fashion as I had in Trump. Ask the agricultural sector how THAT worked out for them.

I do want to point out that I'm amused as f*** that he's talking about more gov't money being put into research and higher education. Gee, Tom. It's "almost" like socialism works. As a "good Republican" I seriously doubt he grasps the need for money to educate the children so they are ready to go to college, handle the advanced learning, and actually do this research.

Does Sen Cotton not realize that American companies want to work in China, have trade relationships with China, and that they have lots of money to spend defeating his re-election campaign? And does he think that like Texas staying off the Western Grid, you just pull away from the rest of the world and everything is just fine?

[LFC]

 golden_valley, on 22 February 2021 - 12:34 PM, said:

And does he think...

In my experience the answer is no he does not. He's always been very Paul Ryanesque to me: mediocrity posing as knowledgeable.

[andydp]

We have been talking about Chinese theft of intellectual property...

Chinese businessman charged with stealing GE trade secrets

ALBANY – The vice president of a Chinese semi-conductor company is facing federal charges in Albany for allegedly conspiring to steal trade secrets from General Electric worth millions of dollars.
Chi Lung Winsman Ng, 64, also known as Winsman Ng, was indicted in U.S. District Court on Thursday accused of stealing secrets involving the company’s silicon carbide metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors, known as MOSFETS, according to federal prosecutors in Albany.


Chinese businessman charged with stealing GE trade secrets (timesunion.com)