Political Posts

Xerxes · April 24, 2023

I don’t know all the details but there seem to be a lot of laissez-fair attitude from Western government in helping to get out their citizens out of Sudan, in this most recent upheaval.

Contrast that with Ukraine in 2022.

if you folks see me be critical in this thread, it is because there is a systematic bias depending on the colour of skin of the victims. It is almost as if the Westerners (people and government) got bored of watching Netflix in 2022 and decided that they need to know where Ukraine is on the map. We got legions of clueless people turned experts. Not a bad thing in of itself, but a bad thing when their heads go back straight in the sand, if the “geopolitical story” no longer fuel their Tolkien-like fantasies.

As far as the argument that this is important because it is Europe and Europe has not wars. BS. And what was the Balkans in the 1990s ?

Europe has seen perhaps less destruction in the past sixty years (than the rest of the world) simply because of awesome deterrent power of the atomic bombs keeping the Reds at bay. Not because of perceived greatness of Western politicians or some sort of Anglo-European greatness.

In fact the descent of Iron Curtain and the nuclear deterrence in Europe largely meant that “kinetic geopolitical energy” being capped in Europe had to discharge itself as proxy wars in East Asia, Middle East, South America, with millions being slayed and their lives uprooted because of Soviet Union and U.S. couldn’t go head to head directly.

Now think of the arrogance of Westerners who somehow see themselves and Europe as sacred, because apparently they’re no land war in Europe since the dawn of mankind. And therefore Ukraine is so special.

mcliu · April 24, 2023

7 hours ago, cubsfan said:

A strong USA gives you the best opportunity for peace in the developing world. There has never been a military power like the United States. Paired up with Europe - and now you have a real chance to continue peace for a long, long time.

What peace? Since the end of WW2, the US has been continuously involved in multiple wars around the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#1945–1991:_The_Cold_War

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#1991–present:_Post-Cold_War

7 hours ago, cubsfan said:

NATO or fear of a United Europe/America by the Soviets - kept Russia in check for 75 years.

It is not fear of US or USSR that kept either side from war. It is fear of mutually assured destruction. In a war between superpowers, everyone dies. People seem to have forgotten this.

cubsfan · April 24, 2023

1 hour ago, Xerxes said:

I don’t know all the details but there seem to be a lot of laissez-fair attitude from Western government in helping to get out their citizens out of Sudan, in this most recent upheaval.

Contrast that with Ukraine in 2022.

if you folks see me be critical in this thread, it is because there is a systematic bias depending on the colour of skin of the victims. It is almost as if the Westerners (people and government) got bored of watching Netflix in 2022 and decided that they need to know where Ukraine is on the map. We got legions of clueless people turned experts. Not a bad thing in of itself, but a bad thing when their heads go back straight in the sand, if the “geopolitical story” no longer fuel their Tolkien-like fantasies.

As far as the argument that this is important because it is Europe and Europe has not wars. BS. And what was the Balkans in the 1990s ?

Europe has seen perhaps less destruction in the past sixty years (than the rest of the world) simply because of awesome deterrent power of the atomic bombs keeping the Reds at bay. Not because of perceived greatness of Western politicians or some sort of Anglo-European greatness.

In fact the descent of Iron Curtain and the nuclear deterrence in Europe largely meant that “kinetic geopolitical energy” being capped in Europe had to discharge itself as proxy wars in East Asia, Middle East, South America, with millions being slayed and their lives uprooted because of Soviet Union and U.S. couldn’t go head to head directly.

Now think of the arrogance of Westerners who somehow see themselves and Europe as sacred, because apparently they’re no land war in Europe since the dawn of mankind. And therefore Ukraine is so special.

Come on man - the Balkan war was a civil war in Yugoslavia - not a war of aggression against neighbors like Austria, Italy or Greece.

No one claims Westerners are sacred. Do you really have a problem with the developed world and the fact that peace lasted for 75 years in Europe???

This was an extraordinary accomplishment. And it should be replicated as much as possible.

Don't make this about some racial bullshit. That's really insulting.

Edited April 24, 2023 by cubsfan

cubsfan · April 24, 2023

48 minutes ago, mcliu said:

What peace? Since the end of WW2, the US has been continuously involved in multiple wars around the world.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#1945–1991:_The_Cold_War

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change#1991–present:_Post-Cold_War

It is not fear of US or USSR that kept either side from war. It is fear of mutually assured destruction. In a war between superpowers, everyone dies. People seem to have forgotten this.

Excuse me - I meant peace in the developed world. Specifically Europe. My bad.

RichardGibbons · April 24, 2023

8 hours ago, Xerxes said:

It is one thing to debate the “what should we do” side of the discussion. These are legitimate discussion based on legitimate concerns.

it is another matter, to always conclude (or use as leverage in an argument) that it is “Germany 1930s again. Don’t you see it”.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

BTW Russian state does that as well in its own propaganda. Kiev is ran by the Azov regiment.

So to summarize your position, learning from history is bad.

What worked and didn't work in the past when it comes to authoritarian leaders with proven expansionist tendencies is irrelevant when looking at authoritarian leaders with proven expansionist tendencies today. We know this because memes.

Xerxes · April 24, 2023

1 hour ago, cubsfan said:

Come on man - the Balkan war was a civil war in Yugoslavia - not a war of aggression against neighbors like Austria, Italy or Greece.

No one claims Westerners are sacred. Do you really have a problem with the developed world and the fact that peace lasted for 75 years in Europe???

This was an extraordinary accomplishment. And it should be replicated as much as possible.

Don't make this about some racial bullshit. That's really insulting.

Cubsfan

apologies if sometimes my post seem aggressive. When I write passion takes over. Nothing against you.

That being said my sandbox is the whole world (and not just North America and Western Europe).

It is great that nuclear deterrence has prevented what we always had in Europe, that is recurring and continuous wars, but nothing is for free. The cost was the playground of the titans being expanded into proxy wars, shadow wars everywhere else.

So what is the lesson here. Nuclear proliferation is great for national security and maintaining the peace and not becoming part of titans playground.

On Balkans, the federation of Yugoslavia had largely disintegrated in the early 80s, so while the 90s war can be viewed as civil war, the federation had largely gone by the time Serbia started to throw it weight around. But agreed nothing like 2022.

edit: clarification.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Xerxes

Xerxes · April 24, 2023

2 minutes ago, RichardGibbons said:

So to summarize your position, learning from history is bad.

What worked and didn't work in the past when it comes to authoritarian leaders with proven expansionist tendencies is irrelevant when looking at authoritarian leaders with proven expansionist tendencies today. We know this because memes.

dude

we have +3,000 years of human history worth of wars and conflict. Surely there are other analogies than the over-used Chamberlain/Munich. Or just assess the situation on its own merit.

When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in the 50s (or 60s) you know what the western capital said. =>>> Munich, Chamberlain. The same bogeyman has been used everytime West is trying to make a point. In reality what it does it takes away from the evil that the Nazi brought to this world and normalizes it.

cubsfan · April 24, 2023

59 minutes ago, Xerxes said:

Cubsfan

apologies if sometimes my post seem aggressive. When I write passion takes over. Nothing against you.

That being said my sandbox is the whole world (and not just North America and Western Europe).

It is great that nuclear deterrence has prevented what we always had in Europe, that is recurring and continuous wars, but nothing is for free. The cost was the playground of the titans being expanded into proxy wars, shadow wars everywhere else.

So what is the lesson here. Nuclear proliferation is great for national security and maintaining the peace and not becoming part of titans playground.

On Balkans, the federation of Yugoslavia had largely disintegrated in the early 80s, so while the 90s war can be viewed as civil war, the federation had largely gone by the time Serbia started to throw it weight around. But agreed nothing like 2022.

edit: clarification.

None taken Xerxes. You said it yourself - continuous European wars came to an end largely after WW2.

These alliances take real work and aren’t perfect, nor easy to maintain. Weak leaders threaten them.

And, yeah, I don’t have an answer for proxy wars in far away lands. The USA has had plenty of disasters- and doesn’t seem to learn.

But containment of Russia & China from destroying/swallowing their neighbors is possible - and desirable.

that’s all I’m saying

RichardGibbons · April 24, 2023

4 hours ago, Xerxes said:

we have +3,000 years of human history worth of wars and conflict. Surely there are other analogies than the over-used Chamberlain/Munich. Or just assess the situation on its own merit.

Well, truthfully, I assessed the situation on its own merit and concluded that appeasement was a terrible strategy. (IMO, the optimal strategy is for the world, or a benevolent group of nations, to make expansionist wars so incredibly costly to the instigator that there is a massive incentive not to instigate expansionist wars.)

With respect to Chamberlain, the most relevant example in history had a similar expansionistic dictator using similar rhetoric, with modernish weapons, similar technology, in the Europe. And that example completely refutes your point of view.

So, I understand why your position is that the most relevant situation in history ought to be excluded because it's over-used. It's very hard to justify your position if someone actually points out how your strategy worked in the past. And, I used it because when someone is saying something that doesn't make sense, it seems reasonable to bring up the counterexample that everyone knows, rather than bringing in much more obscure and less relevant examples from 2000 years ago.

Plus, the picture is concise, and I didn't really want to have a big discussion. Failed at that....

4 hours ago, Xerxes said:

When Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in the 50s (or 60s) you know what the western capital said. =>>> Munich, Chamberlain. The same bogeyman has been used everytime West is trying to make a point. In reality what it does it takes away from the evil that the Nazi brought to this world and normalizes it.

And that's the problem with throwing about Godwin's Law. In order to avoid the evil, we have to understand how it came about.

If you start passing laws so that blacks can't own businesses... well, you can't compare that to Nazism because it's just Godwin's law. Start passing laws to allow blacks to be arbitrarily arrested or beat up--well, Godwin's law says you can't compare that to Nazism because nobody's being gassed. Don't want to minimize the evil of the Nazis.

But you know, I think that the Nazis only got to the stage of putting Jews in gas chambers because they were first allowed to exclude Jews from owning businesses, and could arbitrarily arrest and beat up Jews.

And that's the problem with Godwin's law. It poo-poos the idea that smaller evils can--and did--lead to a huge evil, and in fact that the smaller evils are required to make it to the point of the huge evil.

Or, said another way, here's part of the discussion on the rise of Nazism from They Thought They Were Free:

Quote

"One doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty."

...

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all.

Spekulatius · April 24, 2023

8 hours ago, cubsfan said:

None taken Xerxes. You said it yourself - continuous European wars came to an end largely after WW2.

These alliances take real work and aren’t perfect, nor easy to maintain. Weak leaders threaten them.

And, yeah, I don’t have an answer for proxy wars in far away lands. The USA has had plenty of disasters- and doesn’t seem to learn.

But containment of Russia & China from destroying/swallowing their neighbors is possible - and desirable.

that’s all I’m saying

I think it's likely that without NATO, there would be more wars, not less.

@Xerxes claims many are biased here but then goes on to say that Kiev is run from Azov battalions, which is essentially the Nazi boogeyman, despite the fact that right wing parties got flogged during the last elections in Ukraine (check the electrion results) and the country is somehow run by a Jew. This does not make any sense to me.

On European wars versus elsewhere - of course Europeans are more worried about a war in Europe than le's say the war in Sudan. it's simply because Ukraine is at the doorstep and Russia is a threat while Sudan isn't a direct threat (except being a harbor of terrorists of various sorts). Not sure what can be done in Sudan either. This has nothing to do with brown versus white either, it's just common sense.

bizaro86 · April 24, 2023

42 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

I think it's likely that without NATO, there would be more wars, not less.

@Xerxes claims many are biased here but then goes on to say that Kiev is run from Azov battalions, which is essentially the Nazi boogeyman, despite the fact that right wing parties got flogged during the last elections in Ukraine (check the electrion results) and the country is somehow run by a Jew. This does not make any sense to me.

On European wars versus elsewhere - of course Europeans are more worried about a war in Europe than le's say the war in Sudan. it's simply because Ukraine is at the doorstep and Russia is a threat while Sudan isn't a direct threat (except being a harbor of terrorists of various sorts). Not sure what can be done in Sudan either. This has nothing to do with brown versus white either, it's just common sense.

He wasn't saying Ukraine is run by Azov.

He was saying that the Russian propaganda machine also uses the Nazis as a bogeyman, with their press claiming that Kiev is run by the Azov battalion.

Spekulatius · April 24, 2023

35 minutes ago, bizaro86 said:

He wasn't saying Ukraine is run by Azov.

He was saying that the Russian propaganda machine also uses the Nazis as a bogeyman, with their press claiming that Kiev is run by the Azov battalion.

You are probably correct - i can't find even the post any more. the Nazi's analogies can be taken too far of course, but the Nazi can also helpful in terms of how to deal with a ruthless autocrat that is hell bend on expansion of the sphere. There are similarities in thinking between Hitler and Putin - both think very much in territorial terms for example and there are also the idea of revanchism (Hitler WW1, Putin to restore the Russian empire). If you are neighbor of Russia, it's legit to be frightened, imo.

In that terms, I think its likely that the Ukraine eventually joins Sweden and Finland into the NATO although there is a lot of pushback in the short term. But a decade from now, I think this is going to be likely trajectory.

John Hjorth · April 24, 2023

Actually, it has always amazed me during now many years, how you have approached these kind of discussions, based on my knowledge about your origin, @Spekulatius.

And that's here meant as a sincere compliment.

shhughes1116 · April 25, 2023

On 4/23/2023 at 10:27 AM, Spekulatius said:

On a more interesting note, there seems to be some significant recon activity going on around Kherson where Ukrainian troops have established footholds eastern banks of the Dnipro river. Whether that means anything in terms of the expected spring offensive remains to be seen.

Main thrust towards Polohy. Bridgehead over the Dnipro around Kherson keeps Russian troops fixed on the river, and keeps Ukrainian options open for a quick thunder run to the Crimean isthmus if Russian troops along the river head east towards Melitpol.

I actually think Ukraine has not made the decision on the location of the counteroffensive. I think an attack through Polohy is Ukraine’s Plan A. And I think a blitz through Bahkmut is Plan B if things look more promising in the East. With short interior supply lines, they can easily make a game time decision and have mechanized units at the contact line in a few hours.

Xerxes · April 25, 2023

20 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

I think it's likely that without NATO, there would be more wars, not less.

@Xerxes claims many are biased here but then goes on to say that Kiev is run from Azov battalions, which is essentially the Nazi boogeyman, despite the fact that right wing parties got flogged during the last elections in Ukraine (check the electrion results) and the country is somehow run by a Jew. This does not make any sense to me.

On European wars versus elsewhere - of course Europeans are more worried about a war in Europe than le's say the war in Sudan. it's simply because Ukraine is at the doorstep and Russia is a threat while Sudan isn't a direct threat (except being a harbor of terrorists of various sorts). Not sure what can be done in Sudan either. This has nothing to do with brown versus white either, it's just common sense.

dude. You misread the post on Azov.
Thanks @bizaro86

Also it is not so much about Ukraine vs Sudan. It is about acknowledging that while nuclear deterrence reduce conflicts in Europe, that “geopolitical energy” between the two titans had to be discharged in the rest of the world through proxy wars, coup d’états, constant interference in other affairs. On and on and on. How many millions died in Korea, East Asia, Middle East in the wars that came. I couldn’t care less if it was Washington or Moscow. They both let it rip.

Xerxes · April 25, 2023

On 4/24/2023 at 4:28 PM, RichardGibbons said:

Well, truthfully, I assessed the situation on its own merit and concluded that appeasement was a terrible strategy. (IMO, the optimal strategy is for the world, or a benevolent group of nations, to make expansionist wars so incredibly costly to the instigator that there is a massive incentive not to instigate expansionist wars.)

With respect to Chamberlain, the most relevant example in history had a similar expansionistic dictator using similar rhetoric, with modernish weapons, similar technology, in the Europe. And that example completely refutes your point of view.

So, I understand why your position is that the most relevant situation in history ought to be excluded because it's over-used. It's very hard to justify your position if someone actually points out how your strategy worked in the past. And, I used it because when someone is saying something that doesn't make sense, it seems reasonable to bring up the counterexample that everyone knows, rather than bringing in much more obscure and less relevant examples from 2000 years ago.

Plus, the picture is concise, and I didn't really want to have a big discussion. Failed at that....

And that's the problem with throwing about Godwin's Law. In order to avoid the evil, we have to understand how it came about.

If you start passing laws so that blacks can't own businesses... well, you can't compare that to Nazism because it's just Godwin's law. Start passing laws to allow blacks to be arbitrarily arrested or beat up--well, Godwin's law says you can't compare that to Nazism because nobody's being gassed. Don't want to minimize the evil of the Nazis.

But you know, I think that the Nazis only got to the stage of putting Jews in gas chambers because they were first allowed to exclude Jews from owning businesses, and could arbitrarily arrest and beat up Jews.

And that's the problem with Godwin's law. It poo-poos the idea that smaller evils can--and did--lead to a huge evil, and in fact that the smaller evils are required to make it to the point of the huge evil.

Or, said another way, here's part of the discussion on the rise of Nazism from They Thought They Were Free:

Richard, thanks for your thoughts.

agree with the first paragraph … but …
you say “expansionary wars” I agree but I would add countries that are constantly in interfering in other affairs + that.

Economical wars and economic subjugation is the same as expansionary wars (to me). Just because Kremlin annexes and the modern West doesn’t and chooses to kill babies silently through economic choking, it does not mean one’ foreign interference is intellectually superior or better.

If I had to chose a modern analogy, events leading to WW1 is a better fit than WW2. The world was largely isolated leading to WW2. Whereas now just like right before WW1 we were coming off a multi decade globalization where parties were big trading partners.

Talking to Russians does not mean appeasement. It means talking. Think of it this way. Is West militant’ dominance equivalent to then-West military in the 1930s ?

Lastly, you say chamberlain era is the most relevant because it was the most expansionary. I am sorry but we are taking about Europeans governments of 1930s and 40s that ran vast colonial empires. You cannot take a snapshot AFTER West established its “baseline” and call any deviation from it as “expansionary” by others.

I like and agree with your last two paragraphs

formthirteen · April 25, 2023

Unpopular take: I'm happy to suffer through a nuclear strike or two for my type of freedom instead of the Putin or Xi type of freedom

Hopefully, humans and animals that can handle living in ~~an autocracy~~ a cleptocracy leave before the strike so that they can live happily ever after. They can even leave during the nuclear bluffing phase if they prefer.

In other words, Putin's nuclear threats don't scare me.

Yours sincerely,

Armchair General

Edited April 25, 2023 by formthirteen

formthirteen · April 26, 2023

China “the biggest threat to the Netherlands’ economic security.”:

https://apnews.com/article/intelligence-netherlands-terrorism-threat-russia-china-dutch-cyber-attack-277fb0dc4203cbe6fbbc7ad8476b4184

Meanwhile in France:

https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-04-airbus-and-china-aviation-industry-sign-next-phase-in-partnership

https://www.reuters.com/world/macron-says-europe-should-not-follow-us-or-chinese-policy-over-taiwan-2023-04-09/

Meanwhile in China, BYD is on the offensive:

Edited April 26, 2023 by formthirteen

Luke · April 26, 2023

51 minutes ago, formthirteen said:

China “the biggest threat to the Netherlands’ economic security.”:

https://apnews.com/article/intelligence-netherlands-terrorism-threat-russia-china-dutch-cyber-attack-277fb0dc4203cbe6fbbc7ad8476b4184

Meanwhile in France:

https://www.airbus.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-04-airbus-and-china-aviation-industry-sign-next-phase-in-partnership

https://www.reuters.com/world/macron-says-europe-should-not-follow-us-or-chinese-policy-over-taiwan-2023-04-09/

Meanwhile in China, BYD is on the offensive:

Thank you very much for sharing, i am currently reading the book ,,chip wars,, by chris miller and he also discussed at length how china tries to get access to key technology that they then use themselves.

Just look at some of the quotes:

"The most controversial example of technology transfer, however, was by Intel’s archrival, AMD. In the mid-2010s, the company was struggling financially, having lost PC
and data center market share to Intel. AMD was never on the brink of bankruptcy, but it wasn’t far from it, either. The company was looking for cash to buy time as it
brought new products to market. In 2013, it sold its corporate headquarters in Austin, Texas, to raise cash, for example. In 2016, it sold to a Chinese firm an 85 percent
stake in its semiconductor assembly, testing, and packaging facilities in Penang, Malaysia, and Suzhou, China, for $371 million. AMD described these facilities as “worldclass.”

"That same year, AMD cut a deal with a consortium of Chinese firms and government bodies to license the production of modified x86 chips for the Chinese market. The
deal, which was deeply controversial within the industry and in Washington, was structured in a way that didn’t require the approval of CFIUS, the U.S. government
committee that reviews foreign purchases of American assets. AMD took the transaction to the relevant authorities in the Commerce Department, who don’t “know
anything about microprocessors, or semiconductors, or China,” as one industry insider put it. Intel reportedly warned the government about the deal, implying that it
harmed U.S. interests and that it would threaten Intel’s business. Yet the government lacked a straightforward way to stop it, so the deal was ultimately waved through,
sparking anger in Congress and in the Pentagon"

Just as AMD finalized the deal, its new processor series, called “Zen,” began hitting the market, turning around the company’s fortunes, so AMD ended up not depending
on the money from its licensing deal. However, the joint venture had already been signed and the technology was transferred. The Wall Street Journal ran multiple
stories arguing that AMD had sold “crown jewels” and “the keys to the kingdom.” Other industry analysts suggested the transaction was designed to let Chinese firms
claim to the Chinese government they were designing cutting-edge microprocessors in China, when in reality they were simply tweaking AMD designs. The transaction
was portrayed in English-language media as a minor licensing deal, but leading Chinese experts told state-owned media the deal supported China’s effort to domesticate
“core technologies” so that “we no longer can be pulled around by our noses.” Pentagon officials who opposed the deal agree that AMD scrupulously followed the letter of
the law, but say they remain unconvinced the transaction was as innocuous as defenders claim. “I continue to be very skeptical we were getting the full story from AMD,”
one former Pentagon official says. The Wall Street Journal reported that the joint venture involved Sugon, a Chinese supercomputer firm that has described “making
contributions to China’s national defense and security” as its “fundamental mission.” AMD described Sugon as a “strategic partner” in press releases as recently as 2017,
which was guaranteed to raise eyebrows in Washington.

Or IBM:

IBM wasn’t the only company willing to help Chinese firms develop data center chips. Around the same time, Qualcomm, the company specializing in chips for
smartphones, was trying to break into the data center chip business usin g an Arm architecture. Simultaneously, Qualcomm was battling Chinese regulators who wanted it
to slash the fees it charged Chinese firms that licensed its smartphone chip technology, a key source of Qualcomm’s revenue. As the biggest market for Qualcomm’s chips,
China had enormous leverage over the company. So some industry analysts saw a connection when, shortly after settling the pricing dispute with Beijing, Qualcomm
agreed to a joint venture with a Chinese company called Huaxintong to develop server chips. Huaxintong didn’t have a track record in advanced chi p design, but it was
based in Guizhou Province, then governed by an up-and-coming Chinese party official named Chen Min’er, industry analysts noted.
The Qualcomm-Huaxintong joint venture didn’t last long. It was closed in 2019 after producing little of value. But some of the expertise developed appears to have
transferred to other Chinese companies building Arm-based data center chips. For example, Huaxintong participated in a consortiu m to develop energy-efficient chips
that included Phytium, another Chinese firm building Arm-based chips. At least one chip design engineer appears to have left Huaxintong in 2019 to work for Phytium,
which the U.S. later alleged had helped the Chinese military design advanced weapons systems like hypersonic missiles.

sleepydragon · April 26, 2023

Ray Dalio just came from from his trip china, and wrote this:

(He's very connected to very high level Chinese officials)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-think-going-1-china-us-relations-2-other-countries-ray-dalio/

Edited April 26, 2023 by sleepydragon

Morgan · April 27, 2023

@sleepydragon Thank you for sharing!

Spekulatius · April 27, 2023

16 hours ago, sleepydragon said:

Ray Dalio just came from from his trip china, and wrote this:

(He's very connected to very high level Chinese officials)

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-i-think-going-1-china-us-relations-2-other-countries-ray-dalio/

If you believe what Dahlio writes is true, then as investor living in the west, you want to sell any Chinese investment. Similarly as a Chinese person, you want to pull your investment out of the western hemisphere and particularly the US and Europe.

Otherwise, if the war (economic or even military) indeed breaks out, you will find yourself on one side of the fence and your money and investments on the other. That pretty much means you lost control over your investments and it is likely a total loss for you.

This is true regardless of whether your think what the US or China does is right or justified. You invest in the world as it is, not in the world you want.

Edited April 27, 2023 by Spekulatius

formthirteen · April 27, 2023

Thanks @sleepydragon

I have a similar opinion as Mr. Dalio and it's a good thing that he sees things clearly and tries to communicate it to others.

Quote

It is an anti-elitist and pro-proletariat environment.

Somehow, in all political systems, there's always an elite and the workers always do most of the work. Weird.

Quote

As far as the new leaders are concerned, they are saying all the right things that investors in China would want to hear about opening up and being a peacemaker in the world, and they are even continuing to do the right things—e.g., my and Bridgewater’s dealings with the regulators have been excellent. They still have a lot of respect and credibility.

Judge people by their actions, not their words.

Quote

China under this leadership is more Marxist-communist—i.e., wanting to create more equal opportunities and outcomes—while the US is more capitalist, which leads to greater efficiencies and greater opportunity and greater wealth and income gaps.

Equal misery and the same outcome for all (except the elite) vs. unequal prosperity and different outcomes for everyone.

I think Charlie Munger needs help with risk management. He has a history of blowing up his investments and getting margin called.

Edited April 27, 2023 by formthirteen

Luke · April 27, 2023

1 hour ago, formthirteen said:

Somehow, in all political systems, there's always an elite and the workers always do most of the work. Weird.

What China is trying to do is to flatten out the huge wealth gaps they have, by means of higher taxes/redistribution, forced higher wages etc. Its still a marketbased capitalist economy but with more regulation. If you think higher taxes for billionaires, forced wages in specific sectors or that states buy businesses, germany is also a marxist system haha.

1 hour ago, formthirteen said:

Equal misery and the same outcome for all (except the elite) vs. unequal prosperity and different outcomes for everyone.

This is what is done often, its a ridiculous black and white picture. As if china tries to achieve an equal outcome for all, all they try to do is not to end up like the US is ending up right now. Increasing political instability, stagnating economy, no prosperity for the little guy etc.

1 hour ago, formthirteen said:

I think Charlie Munger needs help with risk management. He has a history of blowing up his investments and getting margin called.

Why does he need help with risk management? He invested in two great big, well run businesses in one of the largest growing economies that gains partners all over the planet in rapid speed. A country that is at the top in many of the futures fields. He rightfully agrees that the valuations compensate for the slight increase in geopolitical uncertainty but as he said, it would be bonkers if there is war between US and China. Why would anyone be so stupid and risk a war, Ray Dalio puts it perfectly, its not in the interest of anybody. Credits to @Dave86ch for this:

Luke · April 27, 2023

And its not an anti elitist movement per se, China welcomes entrepreneurship that increases the live of everybody in the society, good paying Jobs, well made products, higher quality of life etc. What they hate are bragging billionaires that abuse workers, pay bad wages, harm the economy by monopolising etc. Ray Dalio also streched that chinese dont like rich people, they dont like rich people that got rich by abusing others...

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