Well he considers Taiwan part of China so has nothing to do with "other nations"

something to consider regarding their stance on taiwan

imagine if at the end of the civil war, jefferson davis and every other important and wealthy person in the south took all their wealth and relocated to Cuba, where they continued to call themselves the CSA and for several decades were recognized as the official united states

Taiwan had a population of 5 million and 2 million mainland Chinese moved there at the end of the civil war and completely took over

Taiwan is only called Taiwan by us, it's official name is Republic of China


notice on the passport it only says Taiwan in English, nowhere on there does it say Taiwan in Chinese, the Taiwan is only to clarify things for the immigration agents

******standard disclaimer that I'm not taking a side here, this doesn't excuse China's actions toward Taiwan, just sharing what the perspective of Chinese here - this is viewed as a prolonged civil war - not as a conflict between two neighboring countries

Great post explaining it. Not taking sides either but they very much don't see it as another country and never have.

That is an interesting perspective and certainly something to consider.

Had a bunch of wealthy American's fled to Cuba and with their money and influence basically taken it over I would see no reason the US would have to invade and take it over and make it part of the USA. People are allowed to flee a country they no longer want as home and the countries that house them do not become US property by default, just because the ex Pats now live there.

If the USA thought many of those who fled were criminals who needed prosecuting then there are methods for potentially securing their release or grabbing them abroad. That would be the method of correction and not just claiming the land mass (another country) they now reside in.

So my follow on question would be on China's claim to the landmass that is Taiwan as opposed to the US claim to the land mass that is Cuba (which is non existent)?

Re Xi and him being 'outcast' and forced to toil before eventual acceptance in to the party and ascension to its leadership, I wonder if his father wanted that? A sort of Road to Damascus type forced journey on him to see how a young man, possibly who may have been a little too entitled, could come to understand the plight and burden of the people, in a way that would make him a better young communist and future leader? A test he needed to pass to gain entry or forever be on the outside of the mechanisms of power?

I think it's more like if the south won the civil war and during their retreat to Puerto Rico, the union cleaned out fort Knox and took all the country's gold with them. But since no one likes those slave owning southerners, the world community gave the remnants of the union some protection.

This is spot on.

yeah this one is a far better analogy

for some history fun facts, the nationalists literally took anything that wasn't bolted down with them - so much that when you visit any historic site or palace it's nothing but bare rooms

if you want to see the forbidden city then you need to go to Beijing, if you want to see everything that used to be inside it then you need to go to Taiwan where they built a replica forbidden city to house all that stuff


and because anyone with any wealth or education left and they dismantled and took with them their factories and workshops, the commies literally couldn't do anything because they didn't have the infrastructure to do it nor even anyone who knew how to do it - so they flooded the country with engineers and other experts from the soviet union - this is why nearly anything built in the 50s is soviet design style


and they were right to leave, the few that stayed behind endured so much terrible stuff - there's a great book that's been made into a fantastic film called balzac and the little chinese seamstress that details just how being the son of a dentist or playing a violin or reading a foreign novel made one a class enemy

taiwan also had it's own issues, it kept on a dictatorship and only recently embraced democracy - they also massacred a lot of the locals who didn't take to kindly to their strongarm policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_incident where it's estimated they killed 18k-28k native taiwanese protesters

native taiwanese are more genetically linked to austronesians than chinese

but these people are now 2% of the population

while there'd been chinese living there for some time and there'd been a lot of interbreeding among the populations as well as all the korean fisherman, japanese pirates, and dutch traders who made the place their home as well - it's really telling that we totally ignore one group of mainland chinese pushing out and massacring the native population while condemning another for doing the same

of course the mainland perspective isn't that of international hypocrisy on this issue, they would agree with what the nationalists did and actually if you ever talk to deep nationalists they'll often go on about how the Taiwanese have been interbreeding for so long they are no longer even real Chinese anymore because so many of them are now mixed and few families in Taiwan can claim to be 100% han, which is a very big deal for a lot of mainlanders

Interesting stuff. thx.

But it sounds to me more like you are saying this was like all the Nazi's trying to hide away the wealth they stole from various countries in other countries.

Does Italy or France feel a right to take over Sweden because many Nazi were trying to secure and hide their filthy lucre there?

Is that the remedy or is the remedy to force the third party country to release the wealth back to its rightful owners.

It seems to me this is far more about the 'people' than the 'items'. That China wants to flex and demonstrate that there is no escaping Chinese form communism as long as they have the power to enforce. That you cannot simply leave and you cannot simply live free in another nation, as they will just take that over.

If as you say is true, Tawain is actually a nation that belonged to the Austronesians then what possible claim does China have to say it is part of China? Simply because many Chinese moved there and took wealth does not change the nation to a Chinese one??

If one wants to summarize the Chinese revolution and forming of Taiwan, it can be described as a bunch of communists fighting a bunch of nationalists for the right to oppress the populace and execute people they did not like in mainland China.

The nationalists lost, retreated to Taiwan, where they remained a nationalist dictatorship for about 40 years with the blessing of western powers, because "not communist". Meanwhile, China and the Soviet Union engaged in a relationship that can be best described as "mutually abusive" and which ended predictably.

In the 80s and 90s, openly (with emphasis on openly) supporting fascist regimes actually began to matter a bit for western politicians at the voting booths, which led to a decline in foreign support for Taiwan. In addition, a new economically important Taiwanese middle class wanted to offer their opinion on politics without being scurried away in a blindfold. Thus, Taiwan stumbled awkwardly into becoming a democracy.

Looking for heroes or righteous conclusions in history is difficult. There are certainly good and decent people a plenty in human history, but once we start talking about large political shifts and big historical events, there is almost invariably going to be a sea of moral gray. The best you can usually hope for is an outcome which contains some good and doesn't trigger historical horrors.

perfectly said, it seems cup forgets i have him on block when he asked that question but it's a moot point since it clearly wasn't asked in good faith

Thx for this.

Rickroll is so funny being so incredibly butt hurt that i challenged his god emperor TS in the BFI.

It makes me smile.

That he got angry that I posted a 60 Minutes view with no opinion of my own admitting i don't know the history is rich. That he has to assume my question above are not good faith when they are just questions seeking further data is also rich.

He seems to think that if you do not know this aspect of Chinese history you are lying and running some secret agenda. Again too funny.

U.S. science no longer leads the world. Here’s how top advisers say the nation should respond
Growing competition means U.S. must decide where to excel, says National Science Board’s Julia Phillips
21 JAN 2022

A new data-rich report by the National Science Foundation (NSF) confirms China has overtaken the United States as the world’s leader in several key scientific metrics, including the overall number of papers published and patents awarded. U.S. scientists also have serious competition from foreign researchers in certain fields, it finds.

That loss of hegemony raises an important question for U.S. policymakers and the country’s research community, according to NSF’s oversight body, the National Science Board (NSB). “Since across-the-board leadership in [science and engineering] is no longer a possibility, what then should our goals be?”...

...NSB’s white paper hints at an answer by highlighting several factors it considers essential for maintaining a healthy U.S. research environment. The nation, it says, must sustain excellence in basic research; foster a scientific workforce more diverse in race, gender, and geography; and support high-quality precollege science and math education. The board also calls for forging closer ties between academia and industry, keeping borders open to promote international partnerships, and promoting ethical research practices.

Achieving those goals won’t be easy, says Julia Phillips, an applied physicist who chairs the NSB committee that oversees Indicators. ...

...At the top of her priorities is sustaining the federal government’s financial support of fundamental science. “If we lead in basic research, then we’re still in a really good position,” she says. But the government’s “record over the last decades does not give me a lot of cause for hope.” ...





...
The “appalling” state of science education
The latest Indicators highlights serious—and persistent—inequities in elementary and secondary school education, such as poor students of color scoring lower than white and Asian students on standardized tests and being more likely to have inexperienced science and math teachers. Those disparities emphasize the need for NSF to continue supporting efforts to improve science teaching,...



...

I am not too concerned with the "Talent from abroad" graph. The majority of American software developers only have an undergrad because that is all they need to get hired. An undergrad is not good enough for foreign software developers/computer science students, they will not get a visa with one. That is why they all have masters/phds. The only* American software engineers I know with advanced degrees did an unrelated undergrad then switched fields and did a graduate degree in Computer Science.

* I do know one who got a phd, but that is because he wanted to go to into the research academic side.


Still, I agree with the larger point that science research is not doing well. The answer is to follow the money. You can do a science phd, slave away for minimum wage for a decade+, and have lottery type odds of getting a tenure position. Or you can get an undergrad in computer science, work way less, and make six figures at 22. Not hard to see why science research isn't so popular but computer science programs are booming. It is sad that so much talent is going into making people click on adds rather than extending lifespans or exploring space, but that's the way it is.

good documentary being passed around the investment community right now

China gives 'Fight Club' new ending where authorities win


The first rule of Fight Club in China? Don't mention the original ending. The second rule of Fight Club in China? Change it so the police win.

China has some of the world's most restrictive censorship rules with authorities only approving a handful of foreign films for release each year -- sometimes with major cuts.

Among the latest movies to undergo such treatment is David Fincher's 1999 cult classic "Fight Club" starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton.

Film fans in China noticed over the weekend that a version of the movie newly available on streaming platform Tencent Video was given a makeover that transforms the anarchist, anti-capitalist message that made the film a global hit.

In the closing scenes of the original, Norton's character The Narrator, kills off his imaginary alter ego Tyler Durden -- played by Pitt -- and then watches multiple buildings explode, suggesting his character's plan to bring down modern civilisation is underway.

But the new version in China has a very different take.

The Narrator still proceeds with killing off Durden, but the exploding building scene is replaced with a black screen and a coda: "The police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding".

It then adds that Tyler -- a figment of The Narrator's imagination -- was sent to a "lunatic asylum" for psychological treatment and was later discharged....

So now we have three endings, the film, the book and film (Chinese edition).

A Chinese Satellite Just Grappled Another And Pulled It Out Of Orbit
The maneuver raises concerns about the potential militarization of satellites designed to inspect, manipulate, or relocate other satellites.

A Chinese satellite was observed grabbing another satellite and pulling it out of its normal geosynchronous orbit and into a “super-graveyard drift orbit.” The maneuver raises questions about the potential applications of these types of satellites designed to maneuver close to other satellites for inspection or manipulation and adds to growing concerns about China's space program overall.

On January 22, China’s Shijian-21 satellite, or SJ-21, disappeared from its regular position in orbit during daylight hours when observations were difficult to make with optical telescopes. SJ-21 was then observed executing a “large maneuver” to bring it closely alongside another satellite, a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite. SJ-21 then pulled the dead satellite out of its normal geosynchronous orbit and placed it a few hundred miles away in what is known as a graveyard orbit. These distant orbits are designated for defunct satellites at the end of their lives and are intended to reduce the risk of collision with operational assets. ...

Undergrad is good enough. Coding work is way more about practice/experience than theory.

The proliferation of graduate degrees is more about paying for on campus recruiting and visa + OPT to try out/recruit for potential employers.

China signs a security pact with Solomon Islands for what it says to help the country with national security and humanitarian issues amongst other things. This looks to be sadly the first step to China setting up a military base in the southern pacific.

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/101000530

Even an undergrad CS degree is overkill but you need some sort of gatekeeper. The people I know that did well enough in technical majors and went to google/Microsoft/Facebook are doing fine. The problem with science research in many fields is that it’s so top heavy. It’s so hard to get a permanent job in something like algebraic geometry because the top handful of people do 90% of the work. Where as an average person with average work ethic from a good school can go contribute in big tech. They need thousands of people like that maintain/develop their products.

Voices of April: China’s internet erupts in protest against censorship of Shanghai lockdown video

https://abc17news.com/news/2022/04/2...d%20in%20China.

Which dovetails nicely with this.

this just in, chinese people eat with sticks