HarthorneWingo wrote:KnicksGadfly wrote:blanko wrote:It wont matter at all.
Sent from my SM-N960N using Tapatalk
Hmm that's an interesting question. If you had to get a presidential candidate to get that done, who would you pick? I'm not sure I see Biden doing a good job of leading a US coalition, Trump LOL, and even Bernie, I wouldn't have trusted to get it done. I could have seen Hillary doing it, maybe Warren? Beyond that...
As for the rest of the world, I don't see it. China has done a good job of building ties with nations so that they can pressure them economically. I think it also has a point, in that the US is espousing a set of values across the world. The thing is, China knows how to play the game. They know how to use the liberal institutions, and they know how to not be beholden to them.
It'll boil over. You can't continue to treat people like that. Plus, China is hurting economically. Btw, who's China's ally in the world? We spend more on our military than the rest of the civilized world's combined (or something like that). So it's not even close. But it's got be about economic sanctions and being humiliated by the rest of the world. COVID-19's speed has them on their heels and I believe their economy was tanking before that outbreak.
The thing is, China got away with it in Xinjiang. And they think because the US is dropping the ball, they'll probably get away with it in the South China Sea and HK. Taiwan will be next. The thing about this is that the CCP exists to protect itsel, and it does that by delivering economically and delivering nationalistically. It worries me because if Xi backs down here, he looks weak, and he did not get into this position through weakness. In a way, there's no retreat...the word "humiliation" is a big word you used. A lot of China's reaction, now, can be explained by how humiliated they felt for these past few decades. Like America, which has a sense of destiny, China has its own sense of destiny, through its name, ZhongGuo, Middle Kingdom.
I actually think China did very well through Covid. South Korea, HK and Taiwan did too, but China did well. Economics is supposed to be a tool of political pressure, but sometimes people aren't so logical about it...hell, even in the States, people vote against their own economic interests. The protections for the average worker during Covid in China were really strong. People were still getting paid through the month-long quarantine, at the expense of company welfare, and the CCP really got people to agree and listen. There weren't many people breaking the social distancing orders. If we implemented sanctions, I guess China would probably use it as a nationalistic tool in the short-term (look, the imperialist west is interfering again). As for allies, I think China has the Middle East, Russia, and anyone who doesn't like the West. They also will get some Western nations who need the business.
I think what the West has, that China is worried about, are our ideals. Students come here in droves from China. Christianity is growing. TV shows, like Big Bang Theory, is always huge. It's why censorship is so huge there. It's why education is so controlled---tell almost any Chinese person that HK is not chinese and they will get personally pissed off because it's what they learned. And it's why they can't let HK be free. As for the West, I think they'll need to reclaim their moral authority. I don't honestly see much of it in the ivory towers.
I do not think it's a given that the world will get together like this, and I think that's too optimistic. I think it really has to be worked for. I hope for HK's sake that it does, and that our politicians take it seriously.