The most credible theory in my eyes as to why they needed to invade Iraq, was that Saddam intended to boycott the US dollar, and rather sell Iraq's oil in Euros.
There's a de facto global tacit agreement to sell oil in US dollars - on pain of unilateral sanctions by the US or military intervention by the US military. All countries who deviate from this agreement are in fact deemed enemies of the US. This includes, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China, and (formely) Iraq and Libya. When they don't, that means that the US can't simply print dollars as they please and force other countries (who purchases that oil) to purchase US debt as well. Pricing oil in currencies other than the worlds reserve currency (the US dollar) affects the dollar value greatly. The US printed about 10 trillion dollars in two years. The rest of the oil-dependent world pays the price.
> There's a de facto global tacit agreement to sell oil in US dollars - on pain of unilateral sanctions by the US or military intervention by the US military.
That is 100% how the US has managed to maintain as a "stable" global currency.
People often confuse the long history of low-quality imports from China for some essential quality of China. They don't realize or ignore that the quality was determined by what the people who commissioned the products or built the factory--usually not companies or people in China--were willing to pay for their target margins.
There's a scene in Back to the Future where past-Doc is shocked to learn Japan shed its reputation for poor quality once all the good stuff started coming from there in the 1980s. China is experiencing a similar perception shift as more companies inside and out make higher quality stuff there.
One of the most innovative lens manufacturers is a Chinese company (Venus Optics). I'm probably a few months from buying a flash from a Chinese company (Godox) that by all accounts is 90%+ of the quality of the first-party flashes at half the price. I use a Huion tablet which I have to admit is a bit shoddy in construction, but is almost as precise as the Wacom equivalent it competes with at a fraction of the price. If it breaks twice and I replace it each time, I'm still out less than if I went with Wacom.
I don't care for a lot of the policies of the party, but I still have to recognize when the country makes something good.
I'm sorry that you're not aware of the reality of total lack of quality in many products and services in China, which is partly due to a function of lower costing, but also due to a general lack of industrial focus on quality, and particularly a lack of standards.
And then gaslight others for pointing out the facts ...
I work for a company that sells an electrical device, which has considerable standards applied in Europe and North America, and basically none in China. The competitive products to ours in China are essentially dangerous. They will start fires.
We manufacture in China, and depending on the manufacturer, can usually make no assumptions about quality, other than it will be the lowest possible unless there is considerable oversight. Unbelievable, 'shocking' hacks and cutting corners, which we view as a matter of quality, they view as a matter of cost reduction. With the bigger factories that do business with big established brands, that's less of a problem because they're consistently building for markets with higher standards and requirements.
For some thoughts on Food Safety [1][2]
In China, in the year 2000, only 50% of the population had 'basic sanitation' services i.e. toilets. That's changed a lot, but there are still wide swaths of population literally without basic sanitation. The number is effectively 100% in almost every other semi-developed country. [3]. Even in 2015, 5% of the country still does not have access to basic water. [4]
Chinese construction standards are de-facto low (they have regulations, just not very well met), so here are two videos that demonstrate some issues [5][6] - to be fair - this is all anecdotal, and China is a 'very large place'. You're surely going to find crap construction in every country, however, the anecdotes are quite excessive, and they are illustrative. Entire sections of homes, only a few years old completely falling apart, buildings falling down etc..
This affects major projects [7] - there are systematic problems with the quality of concrete that will come home to roost some day.
As far as Air Quality, it's 'Very Bad' - the CEO of DiDi lamented this herself, indicating literally her children had difficulty breathing.
Have a look [8] at the air quality literally at this moment in time. Up to 30% of China is, at this literal moment in time, breathing air that is 'hazardous'.
And of course the political issues, censorship etc. - but those are harder to factor into an economic equation.
So when calculating PPP - the material quality of goods does matter, things like 'air quality' aren't in that calculation but they very well do matter as they are a direct externalization of the system.
China is a large, poor country and derives it's economic power mostly from it's size, not that much else. It's different than Brazil or India (other large, poor countries) in that it does have a number of economic champions.
There's almost a 100% chance that China will soon have the largest economy in the world (by many measure it already does), but almost a 0% chance that we will see GDP/capita, even on a PPP basis, reach that of most modern nations, at least in our lifetimes. That is happening/will happen only for a subset of the population.
I'm sure your experience is valid, but you haven't established that most of what is produced in China is very bad. That's an exaggeration. The very fact that your company manufacture in China means at the very least that the quality of the goods produced there is sufficiently high for your purposes. That you also see bad quality while bottom-scraping the market is not surprising. This very obvious deduction generalises as well, due to the enormous number of western companies that manufacture in China. Their standards are certainly being met, because otherwise they could not outsource their manufacturing to China.
> Chinese construction standards are de-facto low
Compare major cities in China with major cities in the west. Compare road infrastructure (esp. highway infrastructure) and train infrastructure in densely populated areas. Their highway network is an impressive feat. China is surpassing the west, and has already surpassed the west in infrastructure standards in many areas, e.g. by pioneering high-speed railways.
The US is currently making an attempt to improve the dire infrastructure situation, but we'll see how that turns out considering the intrinsic inefficiencies of state / federal infrastructure planning in the US. IMO it's almost surely to be hijacked by capital and the money will thus to a large extent be funnelled away to corrupt and undeserving profiteers.
> but almost a 0% chance that we will see GDP/capita
GDP is not an accurate measure of general economic development in the modern world. The high GDP of the US does not correlate with its failing infrastructure, its inefficient medical and educational system, high amount of poverty, drug addiction and crime etc. The financialisation and de-industrialisation of the US economy decoupled the material standards of the people from the profits of the rich, and thus GDP is largely a fictitious number. So much of GDP is tied up in meaningless activity, like the production of overpriced weaponry, increasing bureaucratization and the prevalence of so-called "bullshit jobs", and in a corrupt and immoral finance / property sector which also poses a direct threat to global economic stability (cf. the financial crisis of 2008). Let's compare living standards, not GDP. China is rapidly surpassing the US in this area. While they still have rural areas which are underdeveloped, they have made major strides this decade and recently eradicated extreme poverty. Their next step is to eradicate poverty altogether.
In Saudia Arabia the people are basically on universal basic income. In Norway on the other hand, the oil profits are all invested into the pension fund, which is very sparingly used for any other purpose.
They apparently don't like foreigners pushing political propaganda into the games they play.
Tbh, I think the fact that the Pentagon are basically brainwashing kids through games like Call of Duty deserves more attention. Some modern AAA games are highly political and filled to the brim with western imperialistic propaganda.
> Is it also political propaganda to show a patch of the Japanese flag?
In combination with Taiwan, of course it is. Why don't you think it is? The history here is that Japan had criminally occupied Taiwan for half a century, and once WW2 was over, the US has supported Taiwans independence from China ever since. Due to Japan's large scale genocide campaign in China, and the fact that they barely even apologised half a century after the war (with full US support), the Japan / Taiwan issue is naturally highly political and controversial in China. There's so much past wrongdoings, so pretending to be on a moral pedestal here is ridiculously ignorant. Even these days the US is threatening war with China over Taiwan, as they have been historically all along.
> Xi-era Chinese nationalism is so fragile and easily bruised
Easily bruised only in the eyes of people completely ignorant of history, or who holds false or extremely biased historical views.
But China is better than the US in all of those things. They don't wage war, they have better health care (no massive drug monopoly charging obscene prices for cheap insulin), higher life expectancy, way fewer people in jail per capita, less of a drug problem (no opoid epidemic), less obesity, not nearly as much violence, practically no school shootings (as opposed to weekly shootings), etc.. this iist is LONG.
But is China better than Norway? Or New Zealand? Or Switzerland?
The US (pockets at least) are dysfunctional but other countries demonstrate the model of not having to live under a dictatorship that commits genocide and restricts liberties and have high values in the things you mentioned.
Not to mention that obesity comes from… consuming too much food. Chinese will be obese too soon as they become wealthier. Well, unless the government mandates calories or something like they do hours playing video games..
China will probably become much better than Norway, New Zealand and Switzerland once they increase their GDP. They have made major strides already despite their relatively low GDP per capita.
The US is the only country committing genocide. They have killed over a hundred innocent civilians in Afghanistan just the past few weeks. Over the past decodes they've killed around a million innocent civilians in the name of the hyper-aggressive and hypocritical "war on terror". Indirectly, they're responsible for several millions criminal murders during the same timespan, and they've not once been put to trial. They're not only failing their citizens, they're a genocidal, terrorist state.
Hard to have a response to something so far removed from what I'm seeing. Not really any reconciliation possible here I think. Have a good day/evening!
That's an odd, but unfortunately not uncommon, way of forming convictions. What are you unconvinced about? You openly admit that instead of uncomfortable information triggering your curiosity, it strengthens your already made up convictions to the contrary.
There's plenty of research, and leaks have uncovered much of the extent of US war crimes. The proportion of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and Iraq) are immense, bordering 80%. This is because of the extremely low bar for claiming someone are enemy combatants.
A "suspected" car bomb (not a car bomb at all), triggered the US to kill 10 innocent civilians. They claimed they targeted ISIS, and that no civilians were known to have died. This is the rule rather than an exception, which leaks and whistleblowers have extensively shown.
Why would I reverse statements that are made on the basis of facts and research, of leaks and serious news reporting? Wikileaks is a thing for example, look it up. Not sure why you choose to refuse doing research into the topic and ignore evidence-based reporting to the contrary of your opinion that is presented to you, which you've been insulated against by a world of US & UK corporate media. You got to admit that you choose to live in that world, which is probably comfortable to you.
Who's the main currency manipulator? The US, and its many, many trillions of dollars in debt which other countries are forced to purchase in order to participate in the global market. As long as the dollar remains the world reserve currency, i.e. as long as the US monetary hegemony lasts, the US will remain the leading currency manipulator. They've shamefully printed about 10 trillion dollars the past couple of years.
It's never happened because Australians would never vote Green. Aside from having the public image as a bunch of hippies and crackpots, a huge chunk of our voter base just want to sit on their nest eggs, which the Libs (current govt.) promise to help with. Another huge chunk just vote how their parents vote.
The only reason Australians (generalising) vote at all, is because we'd get fined if we didn't. With donkey votes (vandalised ballots) counted as votes for the current government, this country exists to hold the status quo.
That's odd. In the UK spoiled ballots are quite definitely counted.
"The number of Blank Votes and Spoiled Ballots are read out at the count, along with the results and are also included in subsequent reports. Your apathy towards the political parties will be heard not just forgotten."
A "donkey vote" isn't a vandalised ballot. It's one where you vote by not considering the candidate, but voting by a simple order, usually numbering from top to bottom of the ballot.
Usually it is highlighted when an unlikely candidate gets a better than expected result, and the pundits would attribute it to the "donkey vote"
This is how American propaganda works, not only to support the Afghanistan war, but to support US imperialist foreign policy in general. It's extremely manipulative, but also effective at controlling the narrative, in a 1984-esque fashion. It has lead to the result that the "official narrative" as portrayed by mainstream media and (complicit) politicians stands in stark contrast with the general public perception on the matter. It's basically taboo to be critical of the widespread use of propaganda to support imperialist policy, and you're generally deemed a conspiratorial lunatic if you point at CIA's role in all this in a manner which is critical both of them and the state which support them.
Where are all the journalists scouring wikileaks for real news? For real content, investigating the dark underbelly of foreign policy and war, etc.? Why are we only served with manufactured consent (i.e. bullshit) from BBC, CNN, etc.? When it comes to war, they eagerly repeat the manufactured lies about our "enemies", be it Saddam's WMD's, Assad's chemical missile attacks, Gaddafi's genocide - all exposed through wikileaks to be lies manufactured by "intelligence" agencies, in conflict with facts and evidence at hand at the time - which then serves to justify intervention on "humanitarian" grounds, but which is merely pretext for imperialist aggression. It's taboo, most of all for journalists, to take an interest in this. They are barred from mainstream media outlets, shunned even. Some are even killed (cf. the investigators of the Panama Papers). You will receive no financial support if you do, and you will be judged a foreign state actor if you're freelancing for non-western media outlets (e.g. RT).
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2003/feb/16/iraq.theeur...
There's a de facto global tacit agreement to sell oil in US dollars - on pain of unilateral sanctions by the US or military intervention by the US military. All countries who deviate from this agreement are in fact deemed enemies of the US. This includes, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and China, and (formely) Iraq and Libya. When they don't, that means that the US can't simply print dollars as they please and force other countries (who purchases that oil) to purchase US debt as well. Pricing oil in currencies other than the worlds reserve currency (the US dollar) affects the dollar value greatly. The US printed about 10 trillion dollars in two years. The rest of the oil-dependent world pays the price.