Comments by "Alan Friesen" (@alanfriesen9837) on "South China Morning Post" channel.

  1.  @_srobona  It's not just China. Human traffickers are literally everywhere.
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  2.  @_srobona  Sometimes the line between the two is not that clear. There's an awful lot of money in adoptions, and there are an awful lot of people with no scruples looking for money.
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  3. Seems pretty lenient. I don't wish any undue suffering for them but I do hope this gets their attention and leads them to a less confrontational future.
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  4. I suppose it has a lot to do with our different political systems, but it's interesting that the Chinese don't appear to be returning personal insults. It does make the Chinese look like the grown-ups. Of course, I don't speak Mandarin, so I don't know what they're telling their own people.
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  5.  @beentrill8492  "who would invest in China?" Right now it's one of the most functional economies in the world.
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  6. The Nobel Peace Prize has been the Nobel Politics Prize for some time. If it was really about peace, it would never ever be given to somebody with separatist ambitions because separatism usually leads to war.
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  7.  @andia968  McDonald's may decide their presence in China is more valuable than their potential consequences in the United States. After all, Americans love to talk about how much they hate McDonald's, but they still buy their food.
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  8.  @Jumptohistory  Not in the great game.
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  9.  @jaredgomora6506  Prisoner exchange is not uncommon where spies are concerned.
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  10.  @tetashome  Taiwan has been part of China since the 17th century.
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  11. I'm really happy that we live in a time where an operation that complicated can actually succeed.
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  12.  @Xaiando  I don't think flipping someone off is considered to be sufficiently aggressive to incite retribution. There's a certain level of insult that people are expected to endure in society.
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  13. It's all about political sympathies, a fault that I share as well. I am highly sympathetic to the anti-racist movement here in the United States, while at the same time I have precious little sympathy for the movement in Hong Kong. It's hard for me to drop my political blinders and recognize the similarities between the movements, even though they are obvious. I don't think protest in general is effective at causing positive change. I feel like the Civil Rights marches in the sixties were a bit of an outlier. I think in both the cases mentioned above the gains made by those at the start of the movements have been lost by the anger against those that have overplayed it. This is particularly tragic in the United States where the treatment of black Americans (particularly black men) is unforgivable and desperately in need of change.
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  14.  @Jznyan  We thought they were lying, but now I don't know.
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  15. I love McDonald's, but don't confuse this with activism. The extant of their polical message was "Please don't boycott me in the United States and western Europe!"
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  16. They made an economic choice that they were better off trading with Mainland China than they were trading with Taiwan. One of the disadvantages of being small and weak is that you have to ride the waves instead of plowing through them.
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  17.  @zilun  Chinese history doesn't begin with the establishment of the People's Republic.
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  18. Now everyone in China is enjoying the freedom that comes with economic development and poverty alleviation. It's time to start pursuing that kind of freedom in the United States.
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  19. In fairness she didn't receive it for Rohingya genocidal cleansing, she got involved in that afterwards. The same argument goes for Obama who was awarded the prize for being not-Bush before he was in a position to order drone attacks.
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  20.  @vortex1908  Bit of a one-trick pony, aren't you?
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  21.  @zilun  It was multiple dynasties. In some cases it was occupying dynasties. But it was always China. In the eyes of the Chinese people your definition of a country doesn't matter. In the eyes of the Chinese people Taiwan is part of China. That's not going to change. And in the end, the will of the Chinese people as exercised by the government of the People's Republic will bring Taiwan under state control, through military means if necessary. That will be the case regardless of what I want, what you want, or even what the inhabitants of Taiwan want. And the rest of the world will wring their hands and pontificate in righteous chastisement as they watch the inevitable play itself out.
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  22.  @zilun  China has had cycles of order and chaos throughout its history. While the extant of China has changed over time, almost always expanding, the frequency of consolidation was not rare. And even when China was broken up amongst different warlords, the expectation that the country was to be reunited by the strongest one was universal among the Chinese.
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  23.  @zilun  You will lose.
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  24. It also has the advantage of being a visa-free zone for most advanced countries. This makes it easier to do business with Hong Kong. Hopefully at some point China will have that policy as well.
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  25. At this point her job is to refuse to capitulate to the demands of the demonstrators. Everything else is secondary.
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  26.  @vortex1908  Your grip on reality is a little weak.
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  27.  @zilun  Taiwan didn't see the combat on the island itself, but when your country's at war, you're involved.
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  28. That's only half the story. Americans are brainwashed in the cult of liberal democracy. Anger with the PRC for not collapsing and being successful is palpable.
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  29. It was freed in 1997.
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  30.  @ayi3455  I don't know if regaining outer Mongolia is on the ultimate to-do list or not. It's certainly not something China wants to bring up right now. China's got too many other territorial issues and until those are resolved they will almost certainly not pick a fight with Russia. I would not be surprised either way in the end though.
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  31.  @ayi3455  I understand the ambiguity of it all. The nation-state is a nineteenth century Western concept that never really applied well to China anyway. The world would be better off if it were scrapped altogether; it's cost millions their lives over the last two-hundred years and it has really brought out the worst in all of us. I don't have too much of a problem with your defining today's China with the Han. It makes a lot more sense than 1949. I certainly would define it earlier but your definition is not without merit.
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  32. I disagree. Consensus is not required, though it would be nice and result in far less death and misery.
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  33.  @Harthorn  The government of the PRC is as normal as any other government being that there is no absolute standard of normalcy. In the absence of a global government with the power and authority to force compliance of states, playground rules apply. You get what you have the strength to take and are willing to accept the consequences for. That goes for all governments including mine (USA).
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  34. She might get some unwarranted harassment but Iran is not Saudi Arabia. She'll be okay.
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  35.  @Jumptohistory  "Well, if China is going to subjugate the Taiwanese by force then everyone will know what kind of country it is." Exactly. A powerful and confident country with ambitions to control its territory and unite its people.
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  36. @John Brower I think with the exception of Coca-Cola, they'll pretty much get what they had.
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  37.  @franciscomartins2656  There is no "this China". There is only China.
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  38.  @jamesli2040  The state was founded in 1948. The country is 4000 years old. A similar statement could be made about Korea.
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  39.  @mo337  "U.S. needs to get on that Taiwan side " Why? So that there can be a flashpoint for total war between superpowers in the Western Pacific forever? The sooner China is peacefully reunified, the safer the world will be. We should be encouraging Taiwan to negotiate reunification with the rest of the country.
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  40. Take care of yourself. Your situation looks concerning.
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  41. As long as it doesn't overwhelm the hospitals, it's not the worst-case scenario. It's still a problem.
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  42. It's terrible for the child to discover that the parents that raised them were either duped into participating in a nefarious activity, or did so knowingly. Now there are a couple of strangers who love them and miss them who they're now supposed to love back while the whole process is trying to tear them apart from the parents they know.
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  43. Two systems was never realistic in the first place. It was agreed to because of British arrogance and Chinese expediency. Unfortunately the people of Hong Kong are proving to be victims of power politics played at a much higher than municipal level.
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  44. Let's be honest, Hong Kong should have never been part of the British Empire in the first place.
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  45.  @kaybee65  "Mongolia is not part of PRC claim…" yet.
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  46.  @ayi3455  While Imperial China began with the Xihuangdi and the Qin unification, China itself goes back much further, at the very least to the Spring and Autumn period which was the age of philosophy in China. Likewise the Roman state predated the empire by a couple centuries, but this is all nit-picking. It's obvious you know your history and I can admire that.
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  47.  @ayi3455  The kingdoms of the Spring and Autumn Period were considerably larger (area-wise) than modern provinces, as were most of the kingdoms in the Warring States Period. The territory of the Western Zhou was also larger than modern provinces and at that time the dynasty had considerable control over its territory.
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  48.  @mingkao1  ROC and PRC are different governments for the same country. Neither are nations. The Chinese Civil War never officially ended, it just became impractical to prosecute for either side.
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  49. Apples and oranges my friend.
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  50.  @Harthorn  You grossly overestimate the power of Democrats. As soon as we acquire the numbers to actually accomplish something we immediately splinter off into factions and fight over whether or not our proposals are pure enough or practical. If authoritarianism ever becomes a thing in the United States, it's not going to come from the Democrats, at least not initially.
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