Comments by "F Liu" (@F_Liu) on "Geopolitical Economy Report"
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@jackvue722 Absolutely NOT Jack. When I say Chinese is an ethnicity it absolutely does NOT mean ''Han (people)''. That is what you wrongly interpret, and which probably comes from the projection of the Western idea of ''Han'' supremacy (as equivalent to White/Anglo supremacy), which doesn't exist in China. If you go read my comment again, you will find I said, I quote here again, ''the Chinese culture is built on multiple (ethnic) cultural identities/influences over its thousands of years of history. China is a true multicultural/multi-ethnic society.'' So ''Chinese'' (中华民族) is a cultural identity composed of multiple ethnicities within the same nation state, but it IS still an ethnicity (collectively), just not in the same context as how the word is used in the West.
Your "the Chinese people of all nationalities", is not accurate, there are ethnic minority autonomous regions, but no independent nations within China. And these ethnic minority population are obviously Chinese citizens possessing the Chinese nationality.
And fyi, there has never been ''Han chauvinism'' at any point in the Chinese history, so it is ridiculous to suggest that this idea has been included in the Chinese constitution. In fact, multiple lengthy Chinese dynasties have been ruled by ethnic minorities, where has there been that so called Han chauvinism?? And I am sure you don't think there is still some kind of Han purity after 5000 years...
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@jerrywright5411 Not anywhere in my comment I indicated the ''China win, West lose'' mantra, the ''zero sum game'' is the US/West's speciality. China does ''win-win'' cooperation, it is happy to work with any country that treats China with respect and as an equal. And back in the 1900s how do you think the poor and working class Chinese got their lands back? Through revolution, led by the Communist Party of China, with most of its founding members from the poor and lived under the capitalists/Western imperialists suppression and exploitation. France did the same, the US fought for independence from the British Monarchy as you mentioned.
While I understand your frustration about the sad situation the West has been in in recent years, and yes I sympathize with ordinary Americans/Europeans who suffer from your corrupt leadership, but ultimately, as a citizen of the West, you ARE responsible for where the US/West is heading. And equally, same for us the Chinese, we are responsible for the direction China is going. China is heading towards the right direction, that is how I see it. It therefore inevitably will do better than the West, and China totally deserves it. And if you Americans want the same for your country as you say you grew up thinking you were superior and wanted to be seen as such, then the answer is do something to make this happen, yeah make America great again, something like that. Otherwise, like I said, accept reality and move on.
I, as a Chinese, have a right to be angry at the US/West, millions of my people suffered and died at the hands of Western aggression and colonization, and they now deserve to live a better life, but the West wants to ruin it, just because it wants to hold on onto their power and domination, it wants China for be its slaves forever. And we say NO. But the West wants to drag down everyone with it as it goes down itself, that include you ordinary Americans. So again, I repeat, it will be up to you people in the West to allow your countries to be ruined by the ''elites''. And lastly, I want you to know, these ''elites'' are NOT in control of the Chinese government nor they are influential enough to change any policy that will determine the level of progress and direction China is heading. I am very hopeful for my country.
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@nigelralphmurphy2852 You, I guess claim to be a real historian, your statements, although contain SOME known facts and some seemingly objective interpretations, I am afraid is still a biased narrative, very much favouring the British perspective. Yes, it is important to learn the actual facts related to the events but even more importantly is to know the different perspectives/interpretations that were risen from those facts. Seems to me you have little understanding of the Chinese perspective, I gather much of your ''facts'' come from English language materials written by ''historians'' from the English speaking world. And this makes quite a lot of difference on how facts were interpreted and how you see things.
I am not a historian full stop but I think I am well educated on all facts I need to know on the matter, I also know well of the Chinese perspective (based on facts) on these historical events, their significance on China's recent history and effects on the Chinese' psychic. The most important point I want to make is the fact that China and Chinese people had suffered badly from British colonialism and imperialism, no amount of minimisation will brush that away, ever.
Now lets look at what you said... or rather lets expose all the holes in your story.
''The decision to go to war in 1839 was passed by only nine votes.'' ''Opium sales were done in Guangzhou and were a partnership between Cantonese businessmen and companies like Jardines, and both parties profited handsomely. There was no trade with "China." The trade was with the Cantonese businessmen in Guangzhou.''
While ''votes'' to go to war with China (the state) were passed by the British parliament, yet you said the British state was NOT actually trading with ''China'' (the state), so who did Britain go to war with and on whose behalf - with some Cantonese businessmen and on behalf of some private British merchants?? The fact was the merchants WERE dealing on behalf of the interests of the British state, hence when its interests suffered damage (after large quantities of opium got destroyed by the Chinese government), it went to war with China. In other words, the British state officially sanctioned the ILLEGAL opium trade as well as benefitted massively from the profit of this trade. And I will just quickly mention that, even this British secondary school material admitted this, I quote, ''In the early 1800s Britain had increased the amount of Opium it sold to China and many merchants were beginning to use threats to force Chinese merchants into buying more Opium (from the British) than they needed (could sell).'' Btw, this school material is just a generic bullet points presentation about ''The Chinese Revolution'', so I don't know the name, author, and date of this material.
''The wars were about free trade, which the English had been requesting for almost 100 years, only to be rebuffed with increasingly humiliating dismissals by the Qing Court. Opium was a very distant objective of the wars.
If your idea of ''free trade'' includes the force selling of a very harmful drug even when it was fully recognised (by the British) being illegal against the Chinese law, then I guess you can call it ''free trade'', lol. And the British HAD been able to trade freely at designated ports and merchant houses for more than 100 years without any problem from the Chinese authority until when the Opium trade, as I already mentioned in my other posts, started to cause devastating effects to both the welfare of the Chinese people and the country's normal trade activity, as in, an increasing imbalance of China's outgoing reserve (to pay for the opium consumption) but however the action of destroying opium is overwhelmingly due to the consideration of the state the Chinese people and their society's health are in rather than anything else. And yes, the wars were 1000% to do with Opium, or rather the destruction of the opium, and again I will quote from this secondary school material, '' These actions were a threat to British trade/profits so in 1840 the British government ordered naval warships to attack Chinese coastal areas.''
''Also, you might have noticed it was only a minority of people in England who stated they felt pride in the British Empire. These must be the same people who voted for Brexit.''
There were two surveys you can refer to to find facts on this, both from YouGov.co.uk, I won't link to them, but you can search on Google, the older one from 2014 where 59% of the people surveyed feel proud of the British Empire, that is a clear majority. There are also 49% of the British people think that, overall, former British colonies are now better off for having been part of the empire. The more recent one from 2020, where 32 and 37 (respectively) percent of people surveyed say they view the British empire as more something to be proud of and neither to be proud nor ashamed of. This result change is I believe partly due to the BLM movements in recent years, otherwise, they should be largely consistent with the older survey.
''In fact, in the Treaty of Nanjing opium wasn't even mentioned (except as compensation for the opium Lin Zexu destroyed in the standoff just prior to the start of the 1839 war)'' ''The British Colonial Office sent very clear instructions to its people in China to not colonise a single square inch of China, as colonies are just a sinkhole of money and far more trouble than they're worth. ''
You once again badly contradicted yourself and hiding important facts or just being ignorant. The Treaty of Nanjing is very much ABOUT the compensation for the destroyed opium and war expenses arose from opium destruction (the cause of the war), and about forcing China to open up more ports for British ''free'' trade including the continued illegal trade of Opium without any Chinese legal jurisdiction applying to it, and allowing the British to live in places in China without the local law and control being applied to them, the very definition of colonialism.
''The only reason the Brits demanded HK was so they could have their own trading post away from the tyrannical supervision of the Qing officials.''
This is a lie. Again, the Chinese had already assigned the British ports and places to conduct normal trade activities, without any complaint whatsoever until the time of the drug trade, and the forceful ceding of Hong Kong is just to enable the British to gain a permanent foothold to further and better colonise China, and ceding territories of another country by force is again the very definition of colonialism, however you try to spin it.
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The Western/European hegemony/domination is based on White supremacy, plain and simple. The way they (the West) routinely dehumanize the Russians, the Chinese, and the people of other Global South countries proves this. They try to disguise their racism by saying for example, oh look we love the Chinese people, we just hate your government, while knowing the majority of the Chinese support their government, while knowing their sanctions will hurt the livelihood of ordinary Chinese. Same for Russia, I hear from Western media how the Russians are described as different from the other Europeans, they are less White or not sharing the same so called European values and beliefs. It is just a way to make people think, it is perfectly OK to do bad things to these people, because they are inferior, their lives value less.
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@GuyWhoLikesTheSnarkies14''
(Re: sven hanson) ''he literally let me know about it then quickly deleted his reply.'' That's really pathetic if that's what he did. I read all your replies to him, courteous and well argued, no problem there. And you are spot on when you called him out that he basically didn't like your proof, but instead of refuting them with proper facts and data he basically labelled yours as ''propaganda'' (he also did the same with this Robin person), yet somehow his take/view is NOT based on Western propaganda, when he couldn't even (bother to) dispute one single data you cited as being wrong. And once again, reading his words, this is another Western person who thinks he knows better how the Chinese (in this case Tibetans) should live than the Chinese/Tibetans themselves. Even when he acknowledges it is in the best interest of Tibetans to have a peaceful stable living environment free from Western interference that constantly trying to destabilise the region to the detriment of those who live there, but no, he knows better than the Chinese government how A PART of China should be governed, because China is never good enough for some superior white Westerners.
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Why is China's atheism a problem? If you believe China has no religious freedom (told by your media), you are wrong. The Chinese are free to practice all world religions and beliefs in their 40,000 mosques (more than the US per capita), 6000 churches and many other religious venues, and of course in their countless temples. But all religious leaders and venues have to be properly registered with authorities and follow laws and regulations. And yes most Chinese do not follow a Western religion (including Islam), they follow their own domestic faith and beliefs such as Taoism, Confucianism and the Chinese branch of Buddhism, as well as ancestral worshiping and other regional folk beliefs, but in general, religious beliefs do not dominate Chinese people's everyday lives, because they are of a very pragmatic and practical people, this is a strength and merit of the Chinese culture.
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