CNN did a special on XI that was fascinating as I did not know his family history and how they were in the wave crushed by the Communist movement. A kid of privilege from a wealthy family who lost his parents in the Communist take over and was forced into subsistence farm work, the lowest wrung of subsistence work to survive.

From those roots he began trying to get in to the Communist Party and was rejected over and over due to his family name and history. Eventually after relentless pursuit they let him in to the party and his escalation to the top of the party was amazing by all standards.


If this was a Hollywood script he would be the saboteur from within. Someone who sought to gain power to eventually turn and reform or destroy the party in revenge for what it did his family and him as a child.

Interesting Piece on 60 Minute Australia

China has even labeled Australia a nuclear threat because they bought nuclear powered subs

My goodness what a bunch fear mongering. Get a grip people

You don't think China takes back Taiwan?

Yep. Xi as a kid got sent off to the Chinese version of Siberia and painstakingly climbed his way back up the ladder, over the course of many decades, to become leader of 1.5b people. How many thousands of bodies do you think he had to dispose of to get there? Say what you will about the guy, but that is a brilliant personal achievement. This was part of what made the Xi-Trump dynamic so hilarious. Xi devotes his life to climbing over the carcasses of all his defeated foes to scratch and claw his way up and up, and then he finally reaches that mountaintop... only to have his American counterpart be a game-show host with a leaky brain, infinite possibilities for kompromat, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. All Xi had to do was be like, "oh yeah, you can have some golf courses in my country, and by the way you are very smart and definitely not fat at all!", and Trump was putty in his hands. Like playing on easy mode.

woah... a lot of nonsense here, would have no idea since cup is on block if you guys didn't quote him

Xi's dad is literally one of the founding father's of communist china https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Elders

that's their equivalent of founding fathers - anyone even distantly related to any of those 8 men is a billionaire and has immense power - this is the knock on effect where the government controls the economy and centralizes everything through nationwide soes

Xi's dad was indeed purged being on the wrong side of Mao but then returned as many did after Mao died - he was the second longest living of the 8 elders (or 8 immortals depending on translation) so he was able to help control things behind the scenes and help push along his son's career

cup pretty much exposed that he's not even paying attention to anything before he posts "lost his parents in the communist takeover" jfc man his parents were the communist takeover -

rickroll, you have only been a recent visitor in P&S. (Maybe you were here b4 I was a mod.)

My "rule" is.... I simply delete entire posts that include over the top personal attacks (like what you posted). The last post remains because you may not have known this "rule".

Do better.

There is 0.001% chance people didn't know Xi was party royalty, even if out of favor party royalty.

He, by all accounts, was well treated even while in exile. He got in Tsinghua before Gaokao was restored. He became party member before college. These are all strong data points suggesting that people knew he was party royalty even if they didn't know exactly how.

It's certain enough people knew to make the right phone calls on his behalf. It's just naive to think the official narrative of, essentially, prince under cover fighting his way up has more than a pinch of salt worth of truth.

cup outright stated the exact opposite of what the facts were and is easily among the most "on ignore" of the forum, i think in this situation it's called for

he should be banned imo - does nothing but toxic and vitrolic aids spreading

The only thing I did was refer to the segment run on CNN that I have no independent view on as I have never read anything on this.

These are not my views. They are from that report and if you have issue it is with the report and not me

I post those things so people here can fill in any gaps or counter the data and info with other info. It is how this place works.

rickroll was a....




KS edit: OK, let's move past this please.

any chance you have a link to the CNN special? (I searched but failed to find)

No. I also took a quick look and could not find it. It was a Special aired last night at 9pmET and in my experience they do not make it publicly available for a few weeks, even on their On Demand content as they often re-air it the following weekend.

Yes. So, I’m an American who at the end of the day would be considered pro American. I have been turned off by the “main stream” narrative for quite some time. Not because it’s “wrong” per say but the way events are being portrayed in foreign policy is too dumber down for me to enjoy hearing about.
I stopped watching Maddow after episode 1 million about “Russia gate” because it was a stupid story.
There was no substance to the claim that Trump was working with Putin beyond his campaign promises to get along with Putin. Substantively, AmericaÂ’s posture towards Russia did not change under Trump from Obama. And the caricature of the leaders; if trump didnÂ’t have dads billion dollars not only would he not be smart enough to work at a gas station, he wouldnÂ’t have learned how to count and he would wear his underwear on his head and then Putin would call him up from an office in Kremlin drinking vodka shirtless and tell him how to spread white supremacy. And then Xi is a uniquely intelligent Asian leading China to a victory in WW3 through brute calculation.

The reality is that When I hear Putin he is a uniquely intelligent classy statesmen who, while first and foremost protecting Russian national interests, offers unique insights into the problems the world faces today. In contrast Xi seems to be the spoiled one and only sees two moves ahead, locked in a predictable and materialistic flight pattern to nowhere, his ideas are about what youÂ’d expect from a Chinese leader and nothing more.

Imagine if America was In Chinas position foreign policy wise and covered that way.
America builds re-education camps to Americanize Californians and Alaskans. America abuses Californians in camps calls them “ hippies” , human rights violations galore.
America claims foreign nation Florida is their territory, but Florida receives UN status as a state.
Will America bomb Maine?
Some say America could attack Maine by 2025.
Warning America builds first overseas military bases in Bermuda. 2 star general Mr. Zheng, leading one of ChinaÂ’s 23 military bases in Mexico says to cool tensions over the Florida keys

America is going to invade Maine by 2028, will the rest of the world fall too?
Rogue American leaders test nuclear bomb just three hours away from the Mexican border

There’s actually a basic logical problem here In that I never said anything in regards to my chances compared to Russia or Frances chances. I also think that’s a problem with your evaluation of people’s posts, you come to your own conclusion about what they meant and then hold people to the standard you created from that conclusion.

Putin was a corrupt and thieving member in the intelligence service, making bucks with corrupt cronies stationed in East Germany. When the CCCP fell returned to Russia so he could steal more. He found his place in Russian politics as a corrupt politician and is today the facade for a Mafia / state hybrid.

Along the way he made sure to make his version of events publicly known, including what I personally suspect are heavily embellished claims about his service which are now gospel in Russia, and also eagerly gobbled up by various media eager to make it a mythology and declare him a «genius».

He is no genius or statesman. He is a kleptocrat who leaves no stone unturned to steal even more.

View his actions with the same light you view an audacious shoplifter, and Russian politics will become easy to analyze. What the Russian regime want is sanctions gone, but never at the cost or risk of having their thefts uncovered or making it harder to steal in the future.

Not when it comes to you buddy.

What you did say was that you would have a better chance at dominating the world than China would.

You also said France and Russia amongst others can keep China in check.

Ergo if you have a better chance than China to dominate the world you therefore have a better chance WITH WHOMEVER are the ones keeping China in check.

You cannot say you have a worse chance against France and Russia et all than China and yet still some how have a better chance at world domination.

Look kid you said something stupid and you don't want to admit. Que sera, sera, its the internet and that is the way things are.


Does not change the fact you do not have a better at world domination than China literally and does not change the fact it was a very dumb thing to triple down.

@tame as someone whose historical analysis i really enjoy reading do you have a take on the Xi issue above?

I am curious about the line between the CNN report and what Rick has cited above which seem far apart.

I am mostly talking about the narrative from an average American perspective, and I need to recharge my phone.
Know that I politely disagree. I do not disagree that Putin. Is mafia like or that his conception of Russian interests that he defends( very well given that many thought the whole country would have collapsed by now) is thuggish. I just disagree that his thuggish ness is thoughtless and uncultured. I also disagree with the idea that he is some hitler in the making, he is nothing like that man.

When it comes down to it what is the difference between a state and a mafia/band of robbers? Pondered saint augustine and I.

Cuepee, as someone with a feminine disposition I don’t really do the insecure male I need to be validated thing in arguments. You just want me to know you’re right or be the victor which isn’t how I discuss things at all. I don’t care if I am wrong.
First off, I don’t think it is Russia and Frances job to keep China in check and never said that, I simply said that either country had a better chance than China.

I see it as America’s role by default to keep China in check since they are the worlds sole super power. A lot of the media fear about China stems from America wanting to keep China in check. Since America is the sole super power in the world in many ways out would be lucky to be the 4% of the population born there. Furthermore it would be fortunate to be in the one percent of the sole super power. The 0.04% of the world. Also friendship is magic. I know you disagree with this whole line of thinking but it’s what I think. I would be lying if I said I thought otherwise.

Like this. This doesn’t make sense. The main reason I prefer my odds to China is because I think Chinas chance of taking over the world is zero for the foreseeable future.

I think France or Russia’s chances are greater than zero and therefore greater than mine. I don’t even have any plans to take over the world.

Bet he was hoping this was “the dude abides”

I'm no expert on Xi Jinping's life, but as a general rule of thumb anything that involves leaders in Leninist states must be weighed or used very carefully. These are regimes that will literally change the history books and devote significant resources to feed positive narratives to foreign media. Anything that reflects poorly or can be construed as criticism of a sitting chairman / general secretary of the party is going to be erased and denied. It would be dangerous to go against that for anyone on the inside or a Chinese citizen.

Since they are not idiots, they'll piggyback of things that contain at least some verifiable information. That makes the task of analyzing these leaders incredibly difficult and even expert historians could easily stumble. Throw in newspapers with limited time for fact-checking into the mix and our own tendency to enjoy mythology or just lightly browse information, and you have a fuzzy mess that is difficult to unravel. On the flip-side of the coin, we tend to impose our own values when we assess or report on these events, which is very often a big mistake. They follow "rules" and "trends" which have few counterparts in our political systems.

But you don't get to be the leader of a large Leninist state without being willing to step over corpses and ruined lives. You work hard to be on the right side of purges as you rise through the ranks and when you get enough political pull, you must be willing to initiate your own purges which will at some point include people you called friends. Obviously these purges are always called something nice, like fighting hostile foreign influence, anti-corruption campaigns or rooting out conspirators against the state. In reality they are equally as much about installing loyalists and destroying networks that could resist you. Leninist politicking is a conspiratorial and paranoid game, where suspicion alone is enough to make people live out the remnant of their lives in jail or end up in front of the barrel of a gun.

I think Rick and Grizy has a point there, in that when stories about a leader later go through the propaganda machine they are going to be re-imagined as a hero's journey. But I also think old animosities, grudges and personal goals are going to play a part. A regime like China, for all its massive size, is controlled by a very small inner circle which networks to other very small circles where individuals near the top hold immense power with very little in the way of accountability and almost zero transparency. There is plenty of room there for individual emotion to play a huge part. Read up on regime changes in China or the CCCP, and they'll read like weird, brutal and bloody soap operas. And they'll strive to do it right, with pre-determined courts and pre-written verdicts, prior to which it is patiently explained to people what will happen to them and their family / friends if they don't confess. Appearances matter.

But one think which is very hard for us "westerners" to grasp is that this is the normal. For the people that go through this system, this is how they are used to things being done. As you get close to the top you'll kill friends, ally with enemies and fight to be on the right side and in the right network of an an ever-changing landscape of political and individual connections. A lot of them very likely believe in it and whole-heartedly support it. We should be wary of imposing "our" ideological and political lens on this system. While our political systems have plenty of blemishes on their own, we are rarely "disappeared" for asking questions.

It is obviously true you care to be right or you would not keep lying about tripling down on something so absurd. You would just own up and more on or let it go but you are vested in not.


You have run in to the same issue again.

You lack of belief in China does not equate to you have a greater chance.

Lets try this.

You agree China would lose in a direct battle with the US, correct?

Who do you think has a chance to do more damage in a loss to the US military, you or China?