It would have very little effect, which is why it's not a primary threat now. Despite China's aims, their tech giants have made little headway in pushing their core businesses far outside of China. Huawei is the primary success story in that regard (the US has obviously been aggressively targeting them across the board). Baidu was supposed to conquer the world and defeat Google, it failed miserably and is largely just a China search engine today, nearly all of their revenue comes from China, so sanctions wouldn't do much. China's tech giants are, for the most part, captives within China. ByteDance did manage to build a global phenomenon in TikTok, however that too is now under threat of being turned back.
Sanctions on most parts of China's system will have little effect, similar to how China's retaliatory sanctions on US Senators are largely meaningless.
There are three primary ways to hurt China. 1) Cut them off on technology (eg semiconductors), which is an angle the US is using to an extent. There is some question over how long China will tolerate that before they just start ignoring international rules/laws/norms and start openly steal-cloning the tech they want (I'd bet they won't tolerate it for very long). 2) Humiliate them politically, through isolation & exclusion; cut them out of the global system; that requires a widespread effort from the top several dozen economies, it can be done however. 3) Target their export machine & dollar dependency, cut them off financially from the global economy (USD, Euro and Yen combined entirely dominate the global economy, along with the connected banking & financial systems); this will work for a while, however China is aware of the weak spots and is very aggressively working to build out their domestic service economy to lessen the importance of their exports to their economy, and they're always looking to lessen their dollar dependency.
All that said, China is well beyond the point where you can really restrict them in the sense that you can most nations (like Iran or Venezuela). They've accumulated enough capability, tech, wealth, productivity, infrastructure, domestic know-how, etc. that they are fully free standing now. They have $60 trillion or so in domestic wealth. They have the world's #2 military. They have the world's largest manufacturing engine, and can increasingly manufacture at or near the highest tiers (eg jet engines & planes, semiconductors, etc). They have very few real weak points that can threaten them in a serious sense. The last time it was possible to squeeze China was before the great recession, when their economy was still far smaller than the US & EU, and back then it was hoped that wouldn't be necessary.
> cut them out of the global system; that requires a widespread effort from the top several dozen economies, it can be done however.
The problem is that many of the world's economies already depend on China - either as a source of cheap products or, and that is an increasingly successful threat, for money. China has been buying up, building or financing construction works especially in South Europe (Italy, Greece, Croatia, Serbia come to mind), and are involved across Africa.
> The problem is that many of the world's economies already depend on China
No question. On point 2, it wouldn't significantly harm China by any means. The point would be to humiliate their power aspirations, as China has an intense desire to be respected as a global superpower, to be viewed as a peer with great powers, and so on. It's nothing more than an attempt at influencing China, to exclude them from the global order that they obviously want to be part of.
Isolation is a modestly potent influence weapon, even more so today than in the past. Russia / USSR for example suffered from an intense desire to be viewed as a power peer, they desperately wanted that recognition from the US (Khrushchev sought that out with his populist visit to the US). Authoritarian systems always seek that with a great degree of desperation (they know their rule by force is illegitimate, so they seek outside sources - typically more democratic sources - to legitimize them).
> they know their rule by force is illegitimate, so they seek outside sources - typically more democratic sources - to legitimize them
China, however, unlike the USSR and Yugoslavia, has the unique advantage of a population so brainwashed that even Chinese students in foreign countries experiencing the benefits of democratic countries are feared for their loyalty to the CCP. Add to that the Great Firewall / their trend of a "Chinternet" aka Walled Garden for their citizens where the CCP controls the narrative and the informations, plus the strategy of allowing local small scale protests against corrupt public officials so that people vent... China doesn't need anyone's validation, they are too big. Unfortunately. The Western countries should have nipped that shit in the bud instead of selling out human rights for cheap crap.
In the event of conflict, there's nothing stopping those countries from seizing Chinese assets in their countries. Heck, the US did that with Merck KgaA and Merck Inc during WW2.
The problem is technology. Here's a Serbian perspective:
Huawei's Safe Cities project uses Chinese-owned and operated facial recognition technology, in cooperation with the Serbian Ministry of Interior, aggregating data from a hundred thousands of 4K security cameras around public places in Belgrade, and enabling tracking by person, and not by place and time. It is infeasible to disable this system and use a domestic one instead. China has complete remote control.
Chinese CMEC (China Machinery Engineering Corporation) and Sinomach in general produce and maintain hardware for some of Serbia's coal-powered thermoelectric power plants, and CMEC is building a new power plant block right now. The control software is provided and maintained by Chinese companies. It is infeasible to disable theses systems and use domestic ones instead. China has complete remote control.
Serbian national railway companies (it was split into multiple ones, including Serbia Train (Srbija Voz) that operates trains and Serbian Railways Infrastructure (IŽS - Infrastrukture Železnica Srbije) that operates the railway infrastructure) are partnered and deeply integrated with CCECC (China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation), CRCC (China Railway Construction Corporation) and CRI (China Railway International). The trains are being imported from China, the rail is being reconstructed by Chinese workers, there are Chinese flags next to the rail for it's whole length. The system will be reconstructed with Chinese technology and deeply integrated into proprietary systems. It is infeasible to disable theses systems and use domestic ones instead. China has complete remote control.
This is happening also to Železara Smederevo and RTB Bor, and more is on the way. Chinese military aircraft is planned to replace old Soviet and Russian planes, and Serbia has already imported Chinese UAVs and anti-aircraft weapons, as well as tanks and advanced multipurpose vehicles. Huawei equipment is installed in all cell carriers and powers intenal networks for military use as well as civil interconnections with ISPs both domestic and international, through the Internet Exchanges in Belgrade. More things are planned.
The only things that could be seized, if a conflict were to occur, are the roads and the dumb hardware. That is not useful, but in any case a conflict will never occur because it would be suicidal for a country so deeply integrated with China to try and pick a fight with such an economic and technological superpower. The problem is that this relationship is not symbiotic, it is dangerous for Serbia due to Chinese tendency to ignore environmental laws, manipulate reports and conceal information about accidents or toxic waste, as well as the planned extraction of natural resources that is one of the key points of the Belt and Road initiative.
EDIT: Oh and one thing, before someone calls me sinophobic[1]: It would be equally bad for Serbia if any other country did such a thing. But they didn't, not even Russia had ambitions to make this a puppet state of theirs.
[1] Of course, for all intents and purposes, in this context, China === Chinese Communist Party with the Paramount Leader Xi Jinping, not the Chinese citizens or people of Chinese etnicity.
I was looking at the issue from a more EU-centric perspective tbf. Not from the PoV of say Serbia or Pakistan.
For most of the aforementioned countries, such as Italy or Greece, in the event actual conflict happens (say Russian aggression with Chinese support/interference), the ties are loose enough that they can be severed with much less economic harm, than say Serbia or Pakistan which are apparently deeply integrated with the Chinese economy.
Yes, in that case it is true. But, they were never in any danger of China to begin with. I look from my own point of view, and I do not like what I see one bit.
Take a look at the number of Western European startups and companies being acquired by China already. What the Western governments don't have are bottomless pockets of cash ripe for acquisitions. Instead the only tool they have are hostile regulations against foreign acquisitions. Even then, the allure of money is strong and the Chinese seem to find ways to extract technology, one way or the other.
China dominates rare earth metal production not because they have a monopoly on extraction technology or deposits, but because rare earth extraction is an extremely polluting process that developed countries no longer do. If China did restrict exports of rare earths, they're just providing an opportunity for mines like Mountain Pass in California to start production again.
In international politics nobody cares too much as long as you are only killing your own people. No country wants to go to war to save some other country's citizens. Hitler could have finished the Holocaust with little more than an international slap on the wrist if he hadn't also invaded France and Russia.
While I get your point business is more important for many countries and going to war for repressed citizens is rare, I think this is a stain that won’t go away and might prove a mistake in the long run. Sure, nobody will go to war with China for this but the Chinese have a huge liability on their hands and might have to pay reparations at some point
Yes they should stop doing that, our country has an unbearable president (Trump) right now but, that doesn’t excuse China from anything and it is also way worse in scale and intensity and done directly against their own citizens who have a different religion.
The thing is that here in the US nearly half of the citizens are opposed. In China nobody gives a damn, they don’t know and don’t care. Big difference!!
But this demonstrates how much advantages open-source software has, this transparency does pay off with users who are gradually paying attention to the technology and security landscapes.
Refusing to accept people fleeing from death, torture and sorrowful life, because you are afraid they might interfere with your way of life, is a bastard move, to say the least.
I don't know ME but China has a policy of not meddling other's internal fare. It didn't bomb Libya while Europa did.
But it's more than that: Even China didn't cause the refugee disaster of ME but since the disaster was caused by good intention of Europeans with the naive human rights view,and it's already happened, China still should share some responsibility from humanity point of view. However there's another reason at the opposite side that is always misunderstood as selfishness by westerners : Accept a lot of refugee will definitely cause the internal turmoil because of the collision between bastards and non-bastards. That would be a bigger concern by government. Direct cost of settling refugee should be trivial given the size and wealth of China.
The same situation is applicable in Europa. The direct social cost of settling refugees is a relatively smaller problem. The internal conflicts and political polarization is a high-order problem.
China, which is busy stuffing Muslims into re-education camps? Why would you ever think they would open their arms to a bunch of unruly military-age Muslim males (the overwhelming demographic of refugees fleeing to Europe)?
Is this argument equivalent to "You can't say you support single-payer healthcare unless you run a hospital from your garage" or "You can't say you support NASA unless you have an orbital rocket launch pad in your garden"?
With his pithy comment, lawnchair_larry touches on an interesting aspect of this discussion. Many of those who support mass 3rd-world immigration (engaging in much grandstanding and moral preening in the process) are entirely removed from the actual consequences of it. They have no "skin in the game" so to speak as they know 3rd-world immigrants will not be settling in their neighborhoods (or guest bedrooms) anytime soon.
Utter BS, a specious argument we've heard a million times before (often from Larry, who has been here a long time). You should go for a more subtle sty;e, right wing trolls are always endorsing pithiness, perhaps because of Andrew Anglin's fondness for that adjective in his Daily Stormer trolling guides. I'm sure you would not wish to be mistaken for keeping such noisome company.
Sounds like you are the expert. Will have to take your word on it.
It's interesting phenomena though, isn't it? Those who praise diversity and immigration the loudest are often those most insulated from it. Why is that? Why don't those people move to those diverse, ethnic neighborhoods they claim to love so much?
They seem to only care for the abstract idea of it all, not the reality.
> Those who praise diversity and immigration the loudest are often those most insulated from it.
Do you have any data to support that assertion? Someone could claim just as confidently that the people most comfortable with diversity and immigration are those who have had (assumedly positive) exposure to it. That would seem just as valid a hypothesis, except there is actually some evidence that supports it, at least in one political context:
Uncontrolled immigration will cause the dispute between 2 parties like you and Larry, and polarization of the society which neither party can convince the the other one.
I'm not making a judgement about which party is correct or wrong. I'm just saying that there's an high order problem being ignored by a lot of people.
I just want to point out that I didn’t actually say that I oppose immigration or refugees. This is the internet in 2019, so unfortunately that means we assume that anything other than unwavering support for one tribe means you’re a member of the enemy tribe.
Like most issues, I’m personally more on the fence than I am in either camp. I do think it’s worth challenging someone when they make comments that take such strong positions on complicated issues, particularly when they are someone else’s problem.
Likewise, I don’t support the border wall. But that’s an easy position for me to take, because as far as I can tell, it doesn’t affect my life. However, I’m not in a position to assume anything about the character or motivations of those who live near the border and have strong opinions about it.
And I do find it odd that when it comes to judging the character and motivations of others, so many are willing to give more benefit of the doubt to foreigners than they are for their fellow countrymen with a different political affiliation. I mean, consider that it would be a statistical miracle for America to be the only country with so many “shitty” people. If you think half of the US are deplorable Nazis, then it stands to reason that the worst half of any other country is approximately as bad, so letting them in indiscriminately has to be at least as bad as supporting Republicans. Believe it or not, but some countries have democratically elected people even worse than Trump. If you let in 10 random filipinos, that means 4 of them voted for fucking Duterte. And in case it needs to be said, I have nothing whatsoever against filipinos - they’re just a convenient example. If your belief system is such that people from other countries are fundamentally as good as us, you are dishonest if you reject that this means they must also be fundamentally as bad as us (which becomes increasingly problematic if you happened to decide the right are all Nazis).
I could have it completely wrong, but I just can’t help but think that maybe not everyone on the right is an evil greedy Nazi. Just maybe there are reasonable people over there whose circumstances have led them to a different view on some issues, and maybe the world isn’t black and white.
I do agree with your comment though, and that’s been happening elsewhere already.
Oh my, have we met? I don’t recall commenting on this particular topic previously, let alone often.
I don’t see how my comment would be misunderstood as trolling, to be honest. I’m also far from right wing. My conservative friends, of which I do have a few, give me a hard time for being a lefty, so being called a Nazi is rather perplexing.
I do have a bit more exposure to this issue than most Americans, and admittedly, my experience has caused my view to shift heavily over the past several years.
Not so long ago, I would be calling people out for their lack of compassion on this issue. It turns out that real life is a lot more complicated.
I can be honest with myself. I do have sympathy, but I’m not going to open my home to a refugee. I am not going to sponsor one. I am not xenophobic. Hell, I wouldn’t want my sister-in-law to live with me either.
Unless you’re willing to do those things, then respectfully, I must declare that it is you who is full of BS. Much like I once was. You see, I wanted to see these people helped, and I thought that someone should help them, but it was only an abstract concept. I wanted someone else to do it. Now I realize I have no right or moral high ground to criticize anybody else unless I’m willing to do it myself.
If you in fact are willing and helping, then I will gladly accept criticism from you. And some people are. And I have great respect for them. But personally, I find it difficult enough to take care of my own family.
The backlash in places like Germany, Canada and the UK are very real. All of them poll left-leaning, yet recent polls indicate that the majority of the population feels that they have taken in too many immigrants. That isn’t because they all started reading the Daily Stormer, it’s because unlike you over there calling people out from the cheap seats, they have been faced with complexities that go along with mass immigration of people who are not able to easily integrate with their new society and be self-sufficient.
The Iraqi people have been suffering silently for the past years; they are trapped between ISIS, Iranian influence, destruction of the war, and the US-backed corrupt government. People are fed up.
Indeed they did, but this is a device still in development, to be released late 2020. I would not be surprised if the Windows 10 X team is working to make it at least possible to run 10 X on the smaller device. I'd much prefer 10 X with an Android subsystem. But like I said, I'll pick one up regardless.
I'm sure it could run 10 X easily enough, the problem is the same problem that killed the Windows Phone ecosystem. No one's developing mobile/touch apps for anything other than Android and iOS. Windows has been fully touch enabled for years now but still there are almost no apps that take advantage of that, there isn't even a decent kindle app in the microsoft store. I wish this wasn't true but the truth is mobile belongs to Apple and Google and tablets belong to Apple.
Which is why I'd like an Android subsystem. I want the basic UI experience and default apps to be Windows 10 X. For 90% of my phone usage, I'm using the stock apps (launcher, email, browser, calendar, etc.), and I'd prefer that to be the 10 X experience rather than Android. I want Android to feel like an app safety net, not the primary experience.
But like I said before, even without that, it's still the right device for me.
Yeah, but that raises the question as to what's the upside for Microsoft for building the Duo? Why divert expensive engineering resources to become just another niche Android phone vendor and help shovel money into Google's pockets on top of that?
The only thing they said is that they "are building upon Android".
I think it could both means that they are using Android as an OS or that they built some kind of WSL-like subsystem. The latter scenario is more interesting because it would open up the possibility to run UWP apps that can also run on Windows 10 X, both leveraging the two screens.
True, I wrote that comment as I was watching the announcement live stream. It's still pretty much a prototype at this point but I hope they don't mess up that windows theme a lot.
