• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

brihard

Army.ca Fixture
Mentor
Reaction score
646
Points
860
The larger national interest commands that Canada vociferously, and continually, demands the release of the two Michaels, and economics be damned. Below the radar diplomacy, as has been practiced since WWII, was a viable option during the Cold War, and perhaps up until 2010. With an increasingly belligerent CCP regime, utilizing their DIME-centric approach, Canada needs to disengage, immediately.

There will be short term pains. I would hope they will be offset by a "Canada's Back" re-emergence on the world stage as a dispassionate observer and mentor, with impeccable credentials, as we once were.
Absolutely. I’m talking in the sense of not giving them what they want, and being realistic about what that will mean.

I fully believe that a multilateral policy of containing China’s aggression is very much in order at this point. At which point we enter a new Cold War where the axis is aligned roughly on which countries China can buy off versus those already aligned with us or which the west buys off better.
 

Weinie

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
490
Points
980
The adoption of the motion in the HoC yesterday to accuse China of genocide was a start.

And let's not forget that former senior Liberals and other influencers have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Their links to China are vast. We appear to have our own "Gang of Five" who have influenced Canadian foreign policy. I suspect that the phone lines to PMO were burning in advance of the vote.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-liberal-party-and-the-rule-of-law/
 

YZT580

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
78
Points
480
Does anyone else find the cabinet's absence from the vote and their token abstention more than a little arrogant? Correct me please if I am wrong but I believe that the government of Canada is represented by the entire House. The cabinet is not the government of Canada as was stated in their token abstention. Thus, I believe that whenever a vote is held, the majority decision is the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives and therefore is the opinion of the government.
 

Fishbone Jones

Army.ca Myth
Subscriber
Donor
Reaction score
80
Points
530
It's easier to be absent than explain your lies. This way he can say he he didn't vote against the motion. Mind, he didn't vote for it either. He would've been on the spot trying to explain his choice. Either Canadians would have been pissed or if he stood with Canada, his ChiCom masters would be the one pissed.

It's easier to hide in the closet, start another crisis to take people's minds off Red China, then reappear after the channel is changed. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's Trudeau's modus operandi. His vaccination fiasco is already fading from memories.
 

daftandbarmy

Army.ca Myth
Reaction score
1,218
Points
910
I kind of agree with the Economist on this one. Words matter. They matter even more when global conflict, and 'genocide precedent' are at stake:


“Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang​

To confront evil, the first step is to describe it accurately


When Ronald Reagan cried “tear down this wall”, everyone knew what he meant. There was a wall. It imprisoned East Germans. It had to come down. One day, it did. In the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, it is crucial that democracies tell the truth in plain language. Dictatorships will always lie and obfuscate to conceal their true nature. Democracies can tell it like it is. Bear this in mind when deciding what to call China’s persecution of the Uyghurs. On his last full day in office, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, called it “genocide”. Although Joe Biden did not use that word this week in his first talk with Xi Jinping, China’s president, his administration has repeated it (see article) and lawmakers in Britain are mulling it (see article). But is it accurate?

By the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocational training centres”. It has forcibly sterilised some Uyghur women. But it is not slaughtering them.

Calling it genocide depends on a definition rooted in a un convention which suggests that one need not actually kill anyone to commit it. Measures “intended to prevent births”, or inflicting “serious bodily or mental harm” will suffice, if their aim is “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. How large a part is not specified. In principle it is, alas, possible to imagine the destruction of an entire people by, for example, the systematic sterilisation of all women. But if conventions are worded with unusual broadness, they must also be used with special care. Until now, America’s State Department had applied the “genocide” label only to mass slaughter, and even then it often hesitated, for fear that uttering the term would create an expectation that it would intervene. It did not call Rwanda’s genocide a genocide until it was practically over.

America’s political rhetoric has thus undergone a dramatic shift, which has profound implications for the world’s most important bilateral relationship. By accusing China of genocide, it is sending the signal that its government has committed the most heinous of crimes. And yet at the same time it is proposing to deal with it over global warming, pandemics and trade.

Some campaigners think the rhetorical escalation is nonetheless wise. It will stoke useful outrage, they argue, rallying companies to shun Chinese suppliers and countries to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics. On the contrary, it is more likely to be counter-productive. For a start, it accomplishes nothing to exaggerate the Communist Party’s crimes in Xinjiang. Countless true stories of families torn apart and Uyghurs living in terror appal any humane listener. When ordinary Han Chinese hear them, as a few did on Clubhouse, a new social-media platform, which China has rushed to block, they are horrified (see article). By contrast, if America makes what sound like baseless allegations of mass killing, patriotic Chinese will be more likely to believe their government’s line, that Westerners lie about Xinjiang to tarnish a rising power.

Democracies face an unprecedented and delicate task when they deal with China, which is both a threat to global norms and an essential partner in tackling global crises such as climate change (see article). To refuse to engage with it is to endanger the world economy and the planet.
Mr Biden is right to decry China’s abuses, but he should do so truthfully. The country is committing crimes against humanity. By accusing it of genocide instead, in the absence of mass murder, America is diminishing the unique stigma of the term. Genocide should put a government beyond the pale; yet American officials will keep doing business with the regime they have branded genocidal. Future genocidaires will take comfort.

 

Kat Stevens

Army.ca Fixture
Subscriber
Donor
Reaction score
164
Points
680
I kind of agree with the Economist on this one. Words matter. They matter even more when global conflict, and 'genocide precedent' are at stake:


“Genocide” is the wrong word for the horrors of Xinjiang​

To confront evil, the first step is to describe it accurately


When Ronald Reagan cried “tear down this wall”, everyone knew what he meant. There was a wall. It imprisoned East Germans. It had to come down. One day, it did. In the struggle between democracy and dictatorship, it is crucial that democracies tell the truth in plain language. Dictatorships will always lie and obfuscate to conceal their true nature. Democracies can tell it like it is. Bear this in mind when deciding what to call China’s persecution of the Uyghurs. On his last full day in office, Donald Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, called it “genocide”. Although Joe Biden did not use that word this week in his first talk with Xi Jinping, China’s president, his administration has repeated it (see article) and lawmakers in Britain are mulling it (see article). But is it accurate?

By the common understanding of the word, it is not. Just as “homicide” means killing a person and “suicide” means killing yourself, “genocide” means killing a people. China’s persecution of the Uyghurs is horrific: it has locked up perhaps 1m of them in prison camps, which it naturally mislabels “vocational training centres”. It has forcibly sterilised some Uyghur women. But it is not slaughtering them.

Calling it genocide depends on a definition rooted in a un convention which suggests that one need not actually kill anyone to commit it. Measures “intended to prevent births”, or inflicting “serious bodily or mental harm” will suffice, if their aim is “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. How large a part is not specified. In principle it is, alas, possible to imagine the destruction of an entire people by, for example, the systematic sterilisation of all women. But if conventions are worded with unusual broadness, they must also be used with special care. Until now, America’s State Department had applied the “genocide” label only to mass slaughter, and even then it often hesitated, for fear that uttering the term would create an expectation that it would intervene. It did not call Rwanda’s genocide a genocide until it was practically over.

America’s political rhetoric has thus undergone a dramatic shift, which has profound implications for the world’s most important bilateral relationship. By accusing China of genocide, it is sending the signal that its government has committed the most heinous of crimes. And yet at the same time it is proposing to deal with it over global warming, pandemics and trade.

Some campaigners think the rhetorical escalation is nonetheless wise. It will stoke useful outrage, they argue, rallying companies to shun Chinese suppliers and countries to boycott next year’s Winter Olympics. On the contrary, it is more likely to be counter-productive. For a start, it accomplishes nothing to exaggerate the Communist Party’s crimes in Xinjiang. Countless true stories of families torn apart and Uyghurs living in terror appal any humane listener. When ordinary Han Chinese hear them, as a few did on Clubhouse, a new social-media platform, which China has rushed to block, they are horrified (see article). By contrast, if America makes what sound like baseless allegations of mass killing, patriotic Chinese will be more likely to believe their government’s line, that Westerners lie about Xinjiang to tarnish a rising power.

Democracies face an unprecedented and delicate task when they deal with China, which is both a threat to global norms and an essential partner in tackling global crises such as climate change (see article). To refuse to engage with it is to endanger the world economy and the planet.
Mr Biden is right to decry China’s abuses, but he should do so truthfully. The country is committing crimes against humanity. By accusing it of genocide instead, in the absence of mass murder, America is diminishing the unique stigma of the term. Genocide should put a government beyond the pale; yet American officials will keep doing business with the regime they have branded genocidal. Future genocidaires will take comfort.

And yet everyone rolls on their backs and piddles a little when that word is used by the MCIC (man-child in charge) for the current day treatment of a certain group within Canada.
 

Weinie

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
490
Points
980
No.

I'm no fan of the 'National Man Baby', but the principles of good diplomacy suggests that they take the middle ground - for now (which must be really p*ssing off that sanctimonious, virtue signalling little pr*ck :)).


"A Liberal government source speaking on background said the cabinet abstained to draw a distinction between the government’s view and Parliament’s and to continue to address the issue diplomatically. Cabinet wants to address it with allies alongside the other issues Canada has with China, including the ongoing detention of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig."

Good diplomacy presupposes that both, or all parties are seeking the most beneficial, or least harmful outcome.

China and the CCP seek to skew what they perceive as diplomatic matters wildly in their favour, and see any criticism as "meddling" in their domestic affairs.

China has benefited from international overt assistance and (CCP supported and encouraged) covert espionage and theft for 30 years. This has enabled them to advance economically, but there has been no concurrent (and naively expected) growth in any democratic sectors;, in fact, Western diplomatic and economic support has enabled the CCP to build an economic juggernaut, that they leveraged. They have subverted the domestic masses (their greatest fear) by building a middle class and encouraging all to aspire to this.

This will be a long fight, much like the West/USSR Cold War that finally culminated after 45 years. The economics of that game beat the Russians; pretty sure that the CCP has foisted that aboard.
 

Colin Parkinson

Army.ca Legend
Reaction score
477
Points
880
Consider yourself warned, stay away from China and that includes flying through Hong Kong and Shanghai.

 

Edward Campbell

Army.ca Myth
Subscriber
Donor
Mentor
Reaction score
96
Points
530
Slightly off-topic, but ...

The word genocide lost its value almost immediately after the UN said it was a thing. No one was content that the attempted genocide of the Jews in the 1930s and '40s could be all there was. The Jews could not be allowed that distinction ~ the crime was so horrific that others demanded that they, too, must be seen as victims of it; it was unfair that the Jews should be sole owners of the distinction. Even most Jews prefer the term Holocaust because it has a religious and symbolic sense ~ the ovens at Auschwitz, etc.

Rant ends.
 

Cdn Blackshirt

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
34
Points
530
Not sure how anyone else is interpreting this, but this looks a heck of a lot like they are building a strategic minerals reserve. If I were Taiwan steps like this would make me feel increasingly nervous and I would be bumping up my military spending in a hurry. I have a bad feeling Xi is guy who wants a legacy and "taking back Taiwan" regardless of the cost, is something that may fit his personality profile.

 

daftandbarmy

Army.ca Myth
Reaction score
1,218
Points
910
Not sure how anyone else is interpreting this, but this looks a heck of a lot like they are building a strategic minerals reserve. If I were Taiwan steps like this would make me feel increasingly nervous and I would be bumping up my military spending in a hurry. I have a bad feeling Xi is guy who wants a legacy and "taking back Taiwan" regardless of the cost, is something that may fit his personality profile.


I'm pretty sure that any Chinese leader is only the figurehead for the wishes of the backroom puppet masters. It's a big mistake to think that Chinese government is, except in the most basic of ways, like ours.
 

Kirkhill

Army.ca Legend
Subscriber
Donor
Reaction score
105
Points
680
China's response to the USMC's Littoral Strategy?

USMC makes great play over revamping its structure to assist the USN in a containment strategy based on high tech missiles/EW/GBAD predicated on 30 Offshore Supply Vessels to be developed and delivered in the near future - assuming budget, congress and administrative approval.

US expressed intention is to develop a capability that can be deployed assuming the locals surrounding China agree that it may be deployed.

Meanwhile China builds 200 comparably sized trawlers - potential lily pads like the Marines potential OSVs - and parks them on the door step of one of the neighbours whose permission to deploy the US will require.

Homes for the PLA, missiles and drones -

The US May. The Chinese Do.

"On Monday, a reconnaissance flight by the Philippine Air Force showed that 183 of them were still there. So, you basically have around 200 vessels that have been there for weeks now," says Jay Batongbacal, director of the University of the Philippines Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea.

"Satellite photos also show that the decks of these vessels are very, very clean. It's as if they're brand new," Batongbacal says.





And concurrently they orchestrate a Nuclear Attack run in the straits between Taiwan and the Phillipines.


 

Kirkhill

Army.ca Legend
Subscriber
Donor
Reaction score
105
Points
680
China's response to the USMC's Littoral Strategy?

USMC makes great play over revamping its structure to assist the USN in a containment strategy based on high tech missiles/EW/GBAD predicated on 30 Offshore Supply Vessels to be developed and delivered in the near future - assuming budget, congress and administrative approval.

US expressed intention is to develop a capability that can be deployed assuming the locals surrounding China agree that it may be deployed.

Meanwhile China builds 200 comparably sized trawlers - potential lily pads like the Marines potential OSVs - and parks them on the door step of one of the neighbours whose permission to deploy the US will require.

Homes for the PLA, missiles and drones -

The US May. The Chinese Do.


View attachment 64791
View attachment 64792



And concurrently they orchestrate a Nuclear Attack run in the straits between Taiwan and the Phillipines.




Been looking at this situation and it struck me that there may be an opportunity for a good, old-fashioned cutting-out expedition. One of the original tasks of marines every where and a great way to add new hulls to a navy's inventory in a hurry.

But then, I thought, that seems overly aggressive and antiquated in this day and age.

Somebody has wilfully parked a couple of hundred new hulls in the Economic Exclusion Zone of the Philippines without authority and, apparently, abandoned them. Time for the Philippines to call in the salvors. They may need bailiffs to attend but I am reckoning that they could rapidly recover costs by putting them up for sail.

The hulls may not be suitable for manned duties but they would probably suffice for conversion to Large Unmanned Surface Vessels


XQOJUWTOQ5H7NN6DMZJB35BMXI.jpg

 

Kirkhill

Army.ca Legend
Subscriber
Donor
Reaction score
105
Points
680
Apparently the Philippines can move in the bailiffs. The Chinese government says that the ships at Whitsun Reef aren't officially government boats. They are innocent commercial fishermen.

Innocent fishermen intruding in the UN recognized Philippine Economic Exclusion Zone.


And in related news

Things are looking more fraught. A proposed US Army Taiwan Tripwire - for Canadian consumption think "Hong Kong Brigade" or "Singapore".
Personally I think that is a job for the Marines and their new Littoral Regiments. They don't need to wait for their Light Amphibs. The Air Force, the JHSVs and LCSs would get them to the coal face from Okinawa in short order. At least before the bullets start flying.

 

Cdn Blackshirt

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
34
Points
530
I'm getting significantly more concerned that the PRC has decided it no longer has to follow the global rules of etiquette and behaviour, and has adopted the mentality of the Middle Kingdom (that they are the center of the world). If I were Taiwan, especially after seeing the PRC's behaviour in Hong Kong, I would be ramping up military spending on an urgent basis. The Dragon is growing restless.....
 

FJAG

Army.ca Veteran
Reaction score
480
Points
880
Apparently the Philippines can move in the bailiffs. The Chinese government says that the ships at Whitsun Reef aren't officially government boats. They are innocent commercial fishermen.

Innocent fishermen intruding in the UN recognized Philippine Economic Exclusion Zone.


And in related news

Things are looking more fraught. A proposed US Army Taiwan Tripwire - for Canadian consumption think "Hong Kong Brigade" or "Singapore".
Personally I think that is a job for the Marines and their new Littoral Regiments. They don't need to wait for their Light Amphibs. The Air Force, the JHSVs and LCSs would get them to the coal face from Okinawa in short order. At least before the bullets start flying.


Looks like a role for an Army Multi-Domain Task Force (plus)

🍻
 
Top