I've heard it said before that most of China's geopolitical strategies can be explained with two statements:
- War is bad for business.
- China is big on business.
this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2025
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And nuclear fallout is pretty fucking bad for business.
Except for people selling nuclear shelters.
That "may" is sure doing a lot of heavy lifting...
Blinken said the U.S. had been "very concerned" because Putin appeared to be considering nuclear weapons.
"Even if the probability went from 5 to 15%, when it comes to nuclear weapons, nothing is more serious," he said.
I would have thought a probability of nothing would be considerably less serious.
So China is the new world negotiator? Headline trend over the last couple months anyway.
I mean, the US can't exactly be relied upon to fill that role over the next however many years of temper tantrums, graft and whatever else (nuking hurricanes?)
No. The seismic shift since Trumps first run has been felt. A bunch of, for lack of a better word, asshole world leaders running amuck: Assad, Putin, Netanyahu. Even N Korea is bolder. S Korea even tried to pull a military coup on democracy.
Power vacuums on the world stage matter. Trump created that. And we’ve failed to mend it either election since.
Lame duck President. Inertia. And now another run of Trump. We’re effectively done on the world stage, except for the occasional show of being a bully, probably, because it’s Trump and he wants to play with military toys.
Here’s the bigger problem.
China is boycotting all sales to our defense contractors. Take a minute to think about what that means. And will Trump continue to export what chips we do have to China this term as well? While distracting everyone with tariffs? There’s a modicum of security in military dominance, but it’s not us any more, it’s probably China.
Why wouldn't they be? China has been a major player in international politics for a long time.
I’m not saying it isn’t expected. But it is notable in that it isn’t a democratic nation running the show.
They're not "running the show". Nobody is. That's not how international politics works. They have a lot of influence is all.
A fair rewording.
Neither is the US
Not any more, no.
Still a hell of a lot more democratic than China is. I get what you’re saying but there’s still a long way to fall from our flawed democratic institutions.
Yeah, they have a whole two parties compared to china's one party.
For negotiating with Russia? It makes sense, they're an actual ally of Russia's that they rely on. We can waggle our finger at them all we'd like, & they could do the same to us, but that doesn't mean much. If China has something to say on the matter, however, their words would carry more weight.
Also, as others have pointed out, Beijing has been making lots of moves to become a key negotiator in places where America (or the west at-large) have failed (or are otherwise unable) to step in.
China is basically winning geopolitics and they know that all they need is to keep things as is.
IDK, Syria has been a huge setback for the CCP. Also, there is a growing wave of Chinese divestment among businesses everywhere, and the CCP is losing influence in Canada and Europe. There is a growing will to break their addiction to cheap Chinese manufacturing. Canada in particular hates the CCP, for the illegal police stations and for the kidnapping and ransom of the Michaels.
Surveys in most countries around the world rank the CCP pretty poorly in terms of public perception. (See for example https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/09/more-people-view-the-us-positively-than-china-across-35-surveyed-countries/ ) If this is the CCP winning, I do wonder what losing would look like.
Machiavelli wrote about this. People don't need to love you for your power to be secure, and in fact, it's far preferable to be respected because people fear you than to be respected because people love you.
Yeah, but Machiavelli lived in a rough neighbourhood, though.
DJI (indirectly) selling drones to both sides
Business be booming, why let it end?
Given Blinkens statements about the Palestinian genocide, I wouldn't believe a word he says about anything else.
“May” which means they didn’t.
So what happens when dementia finally takes its toll, and Vova stops listening to Winnie?
It's challenging to engage with articles quoting individuals who support crimes against humanity. Still, if we give some credit to Blinken's statement that 'China may have stopped Putin from using nuclear weapons,' it prompts an interesting question: Could someone have encouraged Putin toward using such weapons? And if so, is it possible that figures like Blinken are not entirely disconnected from this eventuality?
It's not just that he supports crimes against humanity. It's that he lies with every word while doing so.
That destroys his credibility for everything else.
Crimes against humanity are among the most serious offenses, second only to genocide. Someone capable of such crimes is hypothetically capable of all vices.
I'm sure China wants you to think that's true.