It’s been like this since the beginning of human societies. And every time the people in charge keep lying and convincing it’s citizens it’s way more than just a game. Last century it was religion, this century is human rights.

The only consistent mistake is the stupid citizens buy it everytime. You’ve just woken up. Hate to tell you, it never gets better.

Aaaand… we’re upvoting comments of people that obviously have not read the article.

New court documents filed in the US shows that Russian authorities “seized” Google’s money from their bank account in Moscow in 2022 around the time Putin invaded Ukraine.

This happened at the time of the initial invasion and this article is just talking about the lawsuit over it.

So, unless your trying to imply that Google should have been able to see the future, your comment is inappropriate. I only point this out because you’re so highly voted up and are clearly spreading misinformation.

I don’t understand why people don’t understand China’s position. Especially since your so correct in your assessment. Xi will absolutely not suggest a god damn thing. China couldn’t give less of a shit where the borders are between Russia and Ukraine. It’s because of everything you said. They don’t want Russia to crumble completely because of BRICS, beyond that if Russia returns all the land to Ukraine, China would be fine with that. Hell, even if Russia takes fairly significant losses and becomes a vassal state to China, that outcome would be fine to. Russia just can’t completely crumble. China has been using it’s natural resources to buy allies, that’s why BRICS has been growing. Not because of anything to do with the war. This is also why all the world calling for China to stop Russia has fallen on deaf ears. China simply does not care. Except of course if it can help their PR, which is all this meeting would be about.

Only in times of war. It’s literally one of the checks and balances to specifically prevent a president from stopping an election. Now, if we start a full blown war with Russia…

Oh thank God for a moment there I thought we might actually do the right thing. Thank God for our global leaders assuring the universe will be safe from the disease that is humanity. /s

I don’t know why this isn’t talked about more, but the reason for the disconnect is that USA has become a petrostate. As a petrostate, the rich get wildly rich and makes the economy look good, while the citizens are fed a bunch of religion to keep them from protesting.

This is true, China doesn’t care. I’m actually confused about the narrative around China wanting to take TSMC. Even the most cursory glace at the situation should make it obvious this isn’t one of China’s goals. This is because these EUV machines don’t work on magic. They work on knowledge and spare parts. Even in the unlikely scenario that China somehow invades and these machines aren’t destroyed by either China or the retreating Taiwanese, they aren’t going to be able to operate them and more importantly get spare parts to keep them running. They’d at best be used to disassemble and review.

All of this ignores the fact that China is already at 5nm using their own equipment anyway. For the extra 2nm of difference between TSMC’s 3nm to SMIC’s 5nm isn’t large enough to rationalize anything close to what they’re talking about. It’d be cheaper to just keep subsidizing the Chinese industry rather than invading.

All of this is to say, that China may or may not invade, but TSMC isn’t on the list of reasons. If anything, it’s on the opposite end. China has a LOT of motivation to bomb TSMC to prevent the west from getting chips as if TSMC is gone, then suddenly Chinese 5nm are pretty much the most advanced chips in the world (besides Samsung). Thus, the real conclusion is we need to invest in Samsung, which surprisingly isn’t happening for whatever reason is beyond me.

Bizarrely there are, that’s what black water essentially is, a paramilitary group that can hold off a military. If you think it’s insane that we allow private companies own their own military, well it is. They of course not allowed to operate on US soil, but they exist.

Even Russia has laws against this, it’s kind of nut USA allows it. Of course, Russian law is one thing and wagers existence shows how well that law is followed. But even the Russian founders understood having a private military is insane.

*Edit arguably, Putin flaunting the law and creating Wagner is a reason he became a dictator and what the country was trying to prevent when they made the laws.

Well we can only speculate, which is why I said IF I WERE TO SPECULATE. However, Algeria also vetoed, a primarily Muslim nation and Washington is calling them out as representing Arab nations.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/algeria-takes-seat-un-security-council#:~:text=Twenty years after its last,term that begins this month.

So there is evidence towards but I’m not seeing anything definitive. But again, that’s the definition of speculation.

No, I’m only stating their formal argument to the best of my ability to explain it and ignoring speculation. Now, if I WERE to speculate, I’d say what you’re saying is probably closer to the truth. For Russia at least I’m almost 100% certain that’s the reason. China is very different. I’d argue that China’s stance has nothing to do with Russia, USA or Taiwan. There’s this weird myopia when it comes to China and their interests. China’s interests span far greater than those three little pieces of land.

No, for China I’d argue we’d first need to ask who is their audience for this. That answer is the other nations in the middle east. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, etc… China has been trying to formulate a narrative that they are friends to Muslims regardless of the accusations of what they are doing in XinJiang. So, it’s almost certain China’s stance comes from conversations with those nations. So technically they are telling the truth in the sense that their saying what others are telling them. Reality is it’s just to win favor over the oil producing nations so they have stable supplies of energy.

*Edit. Essentially what I think China is saying to the middle eastern world is you have a veto with me, the same way India has with Russia.

So I want to be upfront and say I don’t really agree with their argument, but I do understand it. What Russia and China are saying is by tying the ceasefire to the release of hostages is unfair to the Palestinian side. This is because they lose all leverage and then would be easy targets for Israel who doesn’t seem to mind bombing Palestinian civilians.

My issue is that technically the only reason their bombing is because of the hostages and perhaps if they release the hostages peace talks can begin. The opposite of that argument is it will allow Israel to be even more aggressive after the temporary cease fire is ended.

I don’t know, but that’s the argument.

OK but again to be clear, you’re opposed to the bill?

Removed by mod

Just to be clear then, you’re opposed to this bill passing?

Well the question isn’t about taking China seriously, but admitting that China was right in the first place. US’s argument is that China can spread disinformation on Tik Tok, which is exactly what China was saying about Facebook etc… So, China, which doesn’t have freedom of speech banned those sites for promoting foreign interests. US is now trying to do exactly the same to Tik Tok.

IF you accept USA’s argument here, then you implicitly accept China’s argument since they’re the same argument. So, again, it doesn’t matter what China says, what matters is what you just said:

It’s kind of hard to take their criticism seriously when western sites and apps like the BBC or Instagram are blocked in China.

So there by admitting, China was right, countries SHOULD block foreign influence.

*Edit: Man the timing of this article

https://www.msn.com/en-za/news/politics/exclusive-trump-launched-cia-covert-influence-operation-against-china/ar-BB1jSnFz

Like I said, China seems to be right here.

Absolutely, it’s incredibly annoying everyone has a bias. But that’s what we are going to see as the world splits into 2. In many ways it’s inevitable. I’m just appreciative that at least for now, both sides seem to be opposed to war, with distressingly USA seemingly more likely to start it. Since historically when you have 2 superpowers, war is the first thing that they used to do.

Sure, I completely agree with everything you have said. And the sad reality of news right now in the English speaking world has a US bias for obvious reasons. My link to a S.Korean paper is still a link to a US ally. They’re not as biased as USA itself, but won’t escape all influences. It’s unfortunate at best.

Well it’s also important to note that western media is intentionally not reporting on this properly and putting what I said as remarks at the end of articles. There’s two reasons for this.

1. This has never happened before. Countries usually just bail out their property developers and hope they’ll build cheaper housing. IE USA Circa 2008. So we really don’t know what the outcome of this is. Wall St of course hates this and is terrified of this. I mean if it works and other countries follow suit in the future, what would that mean for all the Wall St. billionaires.

2. Obviously the usual China bad narrative. The west really really doesn’t want any Chinese actions to be viewed in a positive light.

So here’s a Korean article that explains it better and isn’t as influenced by western media.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/xi-jinping-s-socialist-solution-china-s-response-to-the-real-estate-crisis/ar-BB1iDuXM

The key take away point is, stop believing US media, it’s absolutely shit propaganda. I’m not saying China is good, hell I agree with the Koreans that this might not work, but for the love of god don’t believe USA.

China has said they will bail out the regular people. What they’re doing is they’re buying the homes at a discounted price from the people and turning them into subsidized housing. To quote the article:

“We will scale up the building and supply of government-subsidized housing and improve the basic systems for commodity housing to meet people’s essential need for a home to live in and their different demands for better housing,”

So there’s no bailout for the property developers but they are controlling the loss for regular folks.

I’m sorry people downvoted you without explaining that. I know it’s hard to read the entire article sometimes.

No, and that’s the problem. Ever since Covid, people are leaving major cities and moving to more affordable locations. This is largely due to this new work from home culture. Thus, a lot of these grand skyscraper projects are falling apart globally, the news just likes to focus on China, which in fairness is the largest failure of all the nations.

It’s also important to note that while there is an abandoned skyscraper by a Chinese developer in LA, there are also abandoned skyscrapers in NYC and SF that has nothing to do with China. It’s just a bad market for new buildings since people are leaving cities.