Trump vs China

Not really, he backed down on tariffs last week thanks to Canada and Japan. The truth is, Trump has put the US into a very, very precarious position. They have a lot of debt to refinance soon, and if the rest of the world wanted to, they could dramatically increase the interest rates paid on that by coordinating a sell-off of US debt.

Putin has had trump's number for years

y'all are spelling 'russian money laundering operations' wrong.

I found this https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/22/politics/trump-taj-mahal/index.html

So it’s at least alleged and they paid to settle. But wouldn’t you want to keep your laundry working? Idk

You remember r/shitamericanssay? Last time he won, there were a lot of people talking about stuff Europe has but America doesn't, and, if you browse the posts there, a lot of Americans responding how Europe is backwards, in the stone age, and what they do have is paid for by America, out of benevolence.

Well, those folks are in charge now.

There wouldn't be much point merely stopping export to the US because some other country could just on-sell to the US.

He really doesn't understand his precarious position and the harm he has done and is doing.

That's gonna tank the dollar hard

Sounds good to me

I think the story here will go very differently now that the US army can't ensure it's exclusively pro-US.

Australia is the only other major exporter, apart from China, at 15% of global supply. I have never heard of Canada producing significant quantites?

As much as I don't like the Chinese government for all the censorship and etc, they do really know what they're doing in terms of managing the economy and the infrastructure it relies on, as far as I can tell. Including their education system, it's fairly shocking how many of the top engineering and CS colleges are in China.

I was gonna post that one but "What is this business strategy called" gets me every time

It turns out that maximizing for shareholder profit isn’t a sustainable way to run a business, and it actually burns your company to the ground after a few short years.

Also, not being an insufferable douche-nozzle.

I was one of them. They proved my fears unfounded (so far). They've also managed to convert me to a fanboy at some point. I realised I was playing a co-op game brought off steam, on my steam deck, via a steam link to the TV, and the wife using a steam controller.

It was unpopular cause it was kinda ass tbh.

Maybe ever...

Xi is more than happy to have a scapegoat for his economic troubles so the people and the powerful don't hang him. Trump sometimes wants to speed run into the hanging and then realizes he really can't piss off his own power base if he wants to keep his neck.

Which workforce? The Chinese? There's only one union and it's run by the government. Any non-government unions are illegal.

The US is gaining a new interest in unions, but we have our own anti-union laws to deal with. Not as bad China's obviously.

Their wages are going up and young workers aren't as interested in living the slave labor experience living in foxconn dorms working 100% of their time. It's not a union but the overall effects are that policies are being forced to be more pro worker/ better salary and conditions just to meet staffing levels.

I don't think anyone needs to read his book up know he's a fuck up. China doesn't care how much we try and upset their apple cart, they aren't going to play Trump's game.

You say "too" here, but it's doubtful that Trump has actually read his book.

He famously had it ghost written, but fucked up the deal hard enough that his ghost writer got full writing credit on the cover.

The horse... used the elevator? ...I didn't know he knew how to do that.

America holds held 20% of global purchasing power...

Truth be told, I think the only thing we really produced in the US was the US dollar. Sounds like it's the number 1 export for the US, and trump just toppled demand for it.

China is already weakening their currency to keep their exports (worldwide) more attractive.

I mean, that's what trump said they would do. That would make him look like a genius.

That wouldn't really do much for China. The reason the tariffs hurt us is that we sent all our manufacturing to them (along with a few other countries). So the tariffs only make our stuff cost more. Footing the bill like that would just weaken China's position.

What would happen is the US dollar would be weaker, profits selling to the US weakened. It would still harm us primarily.

Or just simple common sense.

Least of all Trump

I don't think for China specifically, though?

They didn't say the CCP are good, they said they are competent.

Not sure whether Xi keeping the job is faltering of the CCP's ideal of collective leadership, or him being the guy the collective leadership wants as figurehead. They certainly don't want a second Mao that's for sure.

The politbureau/party can still elect a new leader even if term limits are removed. There is democracy for "qualified voters" in China.

How is it a complicated to verify claim? Even if you choose to ignore the obvious outcomes, there’s plenty of publications and studies about it. That’s the problem with limiting yourself to “China experts” from the West, they never bother to learn the language or learn about China’s history and politics.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-19-8057-2_23

In China all politicians including the premier start out as civil servants and a required to pass an entrance exam and have to climb up the ranks.

The US could probably adopt some of this without changing too much. A simple spelling test could have weeded out Trump. Ideally, a number of years of experience in civil service/local politics, should also be required to run for president.

It should be be implicitly obvious so it shouldn’t be explicitly stated. But we are simply comparing how the two systems position people of power. It is not about the people themselves in the positions. Think of it like a company that has its CEO climb up the ranks from an entry level employee vs a company that brings outsiders. Except the latter company leaves the decision to mostly an unqualified mass that sometimes hires a highly unqualified person. Both companies can be evil, or the former evil and the latter good, none of this matters to the point that I’m making.

Not really the CCP is basically using a reformed Mandarin system. To rise within the ranks of the party they look at a combination of how well the thing you administered (e.g. a state factory) performed in comparison to whatever is comparable, as well as opinion polls of the local population, which aside from making sure that you won't be hated (which could cause disquiet and if there's one thing the CCP doesn't want then that's that) also doubles at sniffing out manipulated numbers, the people are generally quite good at spotting corrupt officials. If you rank well within your cohort you get promoted from administering a factory to administering local industry, then regional, etc, etc. What doesn't happen any more is grading people based on how good their poetry is as well as cutting off their balls but the basic system is, broad strokes, similar to how Imperial China educated and selected its civil servants.

That doesn't mean that there's not corruption and grift going on, there's still some degree of princeling privilege but it's basically impossible to fail upwards in the CCP. Knowing people or being someone's kid might open some doors, but it's not going to guarantee you anything. It also means that the top ranks are full of for lack of better characterisation engineer bureaucrats.

Or, put differently: If the CCP was completely incapable they would've long lost power. Their whole legitimacy hinges on being perceived as good administrators, they know that, and they're doing their darnedest to not lose it. Propaganda and secret police alone is not sufficient, history has shown that again and again, you actually need to be good at stuff that's important to people or they cease to tolerate you.

He got up to the point that he can do that through merit. He didn’t suddenly get elected as premier. The point I’m trying to make went right past you. “I point to the stars, you look at my fingertips”.

This isn’t about Xi himself or Trump himself. Xi could be worse than Netanyahu, Trump could be better than Sinwar. It is about how those in power get there, how the system selects its leaders. I tried giving an analogy in my other comment.

Yeah all these people are acting like there was a 'Stop Fascism' button we just decided not to press which is just ignorant. It's easy to be Mr. TearTheSystemDown from behind a keyboard an ocean away. If it really affects them so much and is so easy why not just come over and do it yourself?

While not an armed one, you know that protests are a resistance, right? Like, dunno, 50501.

Our two biggest racist parties got 2,6% and 3,7% of the votes.

Just because your country is racist, doesnt mean everywhere is.

I live across the pond, and your country is threatening invasion of mine. I am not in your fucking village.

Fascism means authoritarian nationalism with contempt for democracy, glorification of strength, and scapegoating of enemies. Trump ticks a lot of those boxes—that’s why I used the word.