Comments by "Aristocles Athenaioi" (@aristoclesathenaioi4939) on "Lei's Real Talk" channel.

  1.  @paulbradford6475  What you say is true, and I have applicable quote from someone who would know. “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” Josef Stalin
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  2. I agree that understanding Chinese the Chinese language is a pre-requisite for understanding Chinese culture. However, I expect that politicians as well as business people want to learn Chinese to ingratiate themselves with the Chinese rather than to understand Chinese culture. I should add that I expect the same about people wanting to speak English. Most people who learn to speak English for purely functional reasons. I should add that I have difficulty imagining any general cultural value in speaking English given how widespread English is as a second language in the world. Even a native English speaker would be hard pressed to understand what the culture of English speakers would mean. By contrast there is a distinctive culture among native Chinese speakers. The Chinese even have a distinctive cuisine. Referring to something like English cuisine is at best a joke.
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  3. You mentioned the Three Kingdoms in your description for this video. Would you consider producing a video about the Three Kingdoms and the Warring States periods in Chinese history?
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  4. That sure is a lot of "coincidences"
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  5. The view that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bogged down is seriously mistaken. Here is a link to a video that explains precisely what is happening with Russian invasion, and I will follow the video link with the comments about it made by a friend of mine who is a retired Professor of German History. Russo-Ukraine War: What the West Doesn't Understand EP 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5BAZ2bBUzM Cappy is especially interesting. He quite correctly describes old Red Army techniques that are now being used, beginning with the young, untrained conscripts as cannon fodder. Interestingly, the four (!!) battles for Kharkiv (Kharkov) in WWII, at least two of which pitted Manstein against Konev, are good examples. So too was the Soviet move across Poland and into Germany in 1944-45, culminating with the truly devastating assault on the Seelow Heights east of Berlin. I have been to the Seelow Heights many times. The landscape there is full of hundreds of small Soviet war cemeteries with 50 or 100 bodies in them. Interestingly, current Russian war plans have an even longer ancestry. In the early summer of 1848, Habsburg forces withdrew from Prague, surrounded the city, and bombarded it into submission. This became the standard technique for controlling big cities. They did the same thing to Vienna later that fall (with the Croats acting like the Chechens now). In 1870 the Prussians surrounded and besieged Paris, otherwise controlling all of France north of the Loire. After the provisional government (the "Versaillais") capitulated to the Germans, the Versaillais themselves besieged a Paris that was governed by the Commune, until finally, in May 1871, the Versaillais breached the Communards' defenses and in incredibly brutal street fighting retook Paris block by block, taking advantage of the broad boulevards that Napoleon III had built specifically to thwart urban uprisings. Just as Ike built the interstate highways as defense corridors, the wide boulevards that people love in Paris were built for military reasons.
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  6. I have family in Japan, and know that JR operates at a lose, and requires Government subsides. I had always thought that China had made their high-speed trains more economical. It shocked me when I saw this video.
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  7. Thanks!
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  8. I am sorry but I take exception to your analysis of "political correctness" in English. The purpose of politically correct speech is inclusiveness, and to avoid estranging or marginalizing people. Take careful notice of what political leaders in the US take such exception to the idea of "politically correct" speech. A concept like a person is known both by the people who support it as well as the people who attack it. Ask yourself who in the society of the United States defends politically correct speech, and who attacks it.
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  9. How can one expect a Republican to do anything except favor the power and economic elites over the people. Keep in mind that the Bush family is a political dynasty in the US. Nothing surprising about a Republican supporting an oligarchy in China given that the Republican Party supports oligarchic rule in the US.
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  10.  @johndoe-vc1we  Given the flare-up about Quemoy and Matsu has historical precedent and could make a favorable target for propaganda purposes. Eventhough Quemoy and Matsu are legally part of Taiwan, current population voted for the Kuomintang and seems to favor unification with China. Quemoy and Matsu would provide an ideal stand-off with the US and China. They are definitely part of Taiwan. Taiwan would have to respond militarily, but the US would likely hold back because military help to Taiwan would like inflame tensions. An attack on Taiwan would present real diplomatic challenges for China, and for that reason China might hold back out of concern for looking like an aggressor despite their consistent claim that Taiwan is a part of China. What kind of incident or maybe false flag operation might China cause to give them an excuse for invading Quemoy and Matsu? Some fishing boat incident? A collision between a Chinese Coast Guard ship?
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  11.  @johndoe-vc1we  No I NEVER wanted the KMT to win elections. My point was that the KMT was popular in Quemoy and Matsu and therefore the CCP might be welcomed and they sure could falsrly report harassment of the KMT supports to justify an invasion of those islands. That would present quite a dilemma for the US given that Quemoy and Matsu are properly part of Taiwan and yet not worth going to a full scale war over. The Russian invasion of the Donbass was ostensibly to protect harassed Russian speakers and that is a page out of Hitler's playbook for invading and annexing the Sudatenland to protect oppressed German speakers.
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  12. As I recall, Shanghai is where Jiang has his strongest political base. Is it possible that the Shanghai CCP is making the Zero COVID policy as harsh as possible to work up resentment against Xi?
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  13.  @drumpfdon760  Did just hear more noise from Dopey DRUMPF Don!
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  14.  @SanaSamaha  Someone can dislike a person's behavior, and yet love the person. Happens in families all the time. I admit it can often be a source of emotional pain though.
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  15. When will all cash transactions be expected to end? To do that people must be forced to exchange cash for digital RMB before they can spend that money? I do not see this going well for the CCP. I can scarcely imagine any country could do that without without serious social disruptions. This is going to be a real serious "watch this space for future developments" situation.
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  16. Imagine if the US engaged in hostage diplomacy the way the CPP does. If the CCP attacked Taiwan or Japan, then the US would be at war with the CPP. The Japanese Internment during the Second World War is a stain on the character of the US. Nevertheless, perhaps putting the relatives of the CCP in "protective custody" would temper the actions by the CCP leaders. I think Canada and Australia might also consider protective custody for relatives of the CCP. Surely none of us want those people to get hurt as a result of a war with the CCP. I wonder if this enters the calculations of the CCP about war with Taiwan, or does the CCP have faith that the US, Canada and Australia would never engage in the kind of "hostage diplomacy" that the CCP does.
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  17.  @drumpfdon760  You need to brush up on the law mate. Meng was a flight-risk, and that warrants some kind of restriction on movement in any country. However, I can easily understand why an apologist for the CCP would lack any understanding of law given that the CCP considers any law, treaty or agreement as something they can discard whenever it suits their purpose.
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  18.  @drumpfdon760  All of your replies are concluded by laughter. That tells me never take this seriously. I guess I should reply to your ignorant statements with a deep belly laugh😆 Of course I should expect such a reply from a member of the CCP 50 cent army
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  19.  @drumpfdon760  Is CPC some kind of long-chain polymer plastic?
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  20. Once again, you have hit the ball out of the park, if I may use a Baseball analogy. This really is a great series. One thing it has taught me is that as much as I might detest the authoritarianism of Xi Jinping, he seems to differ from the leaders before him and since Deng because Xi genuinely does what he thinks is best for China as opposed for what simply enriches himself. The fact that Xi is a patriot does nothing to justify the democide of the Uyghurs or the Debt Traps and bullying of other countries. Xi's patriotism conflicts with the interests of my own country, the United States, and I know whose side I am on. In fairness, I should also acknowledge that the US has done plenty of bullying, especially in the Western Hemisphere, and in that sense the US and China have conducted themselves in a similar fashion. Thankfully the US has, until perhaps lately, avoided setting up anything like the kind of surveillance society that China has. I do share with you the hope that Xi will be a Chinese Mikhail Gorbachev. Let's hope CCP infighting will not lead to an invasion of Taiwan as it led to the suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. That was a great loss.
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  21. @crazywarlord777 I quite agree. However,he does appear to be motivated by the needs of China rather than as an opportunity to enrich himself.
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  22.  @cdl0  Well the Japanese introduce new Kanji for technical terms, and of course they also use phonetically transliterated terms. I was directly in the project to translate and publish Japanese language documentation for the UNIX Operating System, and I got to see how they translated certain quite technical terms. As I mentioned, they often used newly constructed Kanji or gave previous Kanji an additional meaning as one often does in English.
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  23. Well the Chinese take matters of social respectability very serious. I have watched with with great interest how China says they never invited the countries engaged in the he boycott, and then in the next breath say how offended they are by the diplomatic boycott. A more self assured country would say that was the perrogitave of the boycotting countries and leave it at that. Maybe express regret that the boycotting will chosen to miss out on the enjoyment of watching the athletes compete. Showing false sympathy, and crying crocodile tears who have worked so much better for the Chinese. Best would have been showing complete indifference as I said before
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  24.  @petergilkes7082  Just respect mate
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  25. Watch the video about Deng Xiaoping and Tianamen Square uprising, and take special note of a CCP official named Zhao Ziyang. His autobiography entitled "Prisoner of the State" makes for very good reading. It was smuggled out of China in pieces and reassembled to produce the book published outside China. I should note that every high ranked officials in government or private companies has done something reprehensible. A close inspection of Mahatma Ghandi's life even shows some exploitation of others. For example, like Mao, Ghandi in his old age often slept with young women, and that is a form of sexual coercion by a man in power. In Gilbert & Sullivan's "Pirates of Penzance" the character of the Pirate King sings, "Many a king on a first class throne must manage somehow to get through more dirty deeds than ever I do"
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  26.  @drumpfdon760  Well if the factions used deadly force on one another then I would call that a civil war. We have not seen that publicly, but it might be going on privately. China lacks transparency, and foreign journalists are prevented from covering many political and social events in China. I trust you will take this seriously, and avoid your "Hahaha..." response which does nothing to progress the conversation in these comments, and in fact impedes such progress.
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  27.  @simplelife7332  Huh??
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  28. Another analysis that one only finds on Lei's channel. I have reference and linked Lei's channel on s number of responses I have made to articles on Medium. I hope Lei will put some articles on Medium with links to her videos. Her work deserves wider exposure
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  29. I very much look forward to the videos about Modern Chinese History prior to the Communist takeover. I enjoyed this one immensely.
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  30. You said that you had stayed away from politics when you lived in China before you emigrated to the US. I am glad you decided to take an interest in politics. As the Ancient Greek statesman Pericles said, "You might not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you." You are following Pericles advice. I wish more people would, even if they disagreed with me. At least they would take politics seriously as Pericles advised.
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  31. "East rises, West falls" is what the Japanese said during the Second World War and is why the Japanese national flag was the Rising Sun. The Japanese only use the Rising Sun flag on their Naval Ensign, but Naval Ensigns and National Flags differ in most nations.
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  32. I can't say I miss his useless and derogatory replies because I welcome their absence. I do find his absence a bit surprising. I guess the CCP decided they were wasting money on him. One less wumao to deal with. Let's hope more fail by the wayside.
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  33. I suggest a woman with high moral standards, and integrity. I can think of one woman right away.
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  34. I believe that the US would hesitate to attack Naval vessels who were enforcing a blockade. However, I think that the PLA trying to impose a no-fly would be much harder because the US would without hesitation attempt to land airplanes on Taiwan even if only in the name of humanitarian aid. If the PLA choose to attack a US plane delivering humanitarian aid then that would be the PLA striking the first blow which could serve as a casus belli that the US would use to justify a retaliation on the PLA. I expect the retaliation would be an aerial retaliation, and that the US would avoid a direct naval engagement until the PLA directly attacked a US warship. After an aerial attack the US might then send ships to Taiwan for humanitarian aid, and if those ships were attacked then the US would engage with warships. I doubt if the US would attack the Chinese mainland because that could trigger a nuclear response from China. However, the US would likely invade the islands in the South Chinese Sea especially those near the Philippines because those islands are considered in violation of the International Law of the Sea as well as the Philippines having a justifiable claim to those islands. It would be interesting to see if Vietnam also invaded the islands that they claim are theirs. There is a long standing distrust between Vietnam and China that goes back hundreds of years. The Vietnamese have long been known as an aggressive power in the Southeast Asia. I do believe that the US and China would avoid striking the territory of either country including a direct attack by China on Guam because that kind of attack could provoke a interchange of strategic weapons. If Japan chooses to land troops on disputed islands between Japan and China, and China attacks an acknowledged part of Japan such as Okinawa then that opens the floodgates because the US has very cleat treaty obligations with Japan. In short, a no-fly zone over Taiwan would lead to serious escalations on both sides.
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  35. Quemoy and Matsu helps Chinese nationalism because the US prevented CCP from invading Quemoy and Matsu in 1955. This allows Xi to present an invasion of Quemoy and Matsu as a victory over the US and Taiwan. For more the Quemoy and Matsu Crisis in 1955 read this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis the Second Taiwan Crisis was in some ways just a replay of the First Taiwan Crisis. However, the Third Taiwan Crisis in 1995 is most interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Taiwan_Strait_Crisis
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  36. I fear that as the story about Miss China and Mr. Wall Street the in-laws did the choosing, and Miss China had very little choice in the the matter.
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  37. I like the new format. Have you considered editing your streams to remove "dead air" and retain only best Q & A?
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  38.  @andrewsarantakes639  thanks for the clarification
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  39. I just realized that the stories could be about Miss China and her evil twin sister Miss CCP. Sometimes Miss CCP dresses to look like Miss China to confuse and trick people into thinking that Miss CCP and Miss China are the same person.
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  40. Neither has Russia, snd we see where that leads.
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  41. Blockchain uses vast sums of electricity. At present, Bitcoin uses as much electricity as New Zealand. That is unsustainable. Block-chain mining should take place in near Earth Orbit. The bitcoin miner satellites can use solar energy, and avoid creating the pollution on Earth. Instead we should work to improve Nuclear Fission Reactor. Please do add Fusion because Fusion will make the fusion reactor itself radioactive
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  42.  @drumpfdon760  When people make comments critical of China, you like to ask people if they have ever been the China. So let me ask you. Have you ever spent time "in" a transnational corporation?
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  43.  @drumpfdon760  now I know you are full of it.
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  44.  @drumpfdon760  I don't know what I don't know, and a vixen is a female fox, and a bachelor is an unmarried man. ROTFLMAO
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  45.  @drumpfdon760  you really are silly. Anyone who has spent any time studying logic would have recognized what you did. You are a hoot man, a real knucklehead. Kiddy-boy. Muah ahahaha!!!
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  46.  @drumpfdon760  Hahaha!!!
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  47.  @drumpfdon760  Gnothi seauton
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  48. Now that Xi had himself declared lifetime head of the CCP, I guess that any successor will have wait a long time. Unless Xi gets assassinated.
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  49. The Ukrainian situation in the Second World War has very disturbing elements to it. In many cases the Ukrainians working with Nazis committed war crimes and atrocities at least as horrific as the Germans did, and in some cases even worse if one can imagine. Ukrainian death squads under Nazi authority committed ethnic cleansing and other genocidal actions. Actions by the Soviet NKVD, secret police against Ukrainians whose only "crime" was getting captured also matched the ferocity of Nazi retribution just the the posting I am replying to correctly indicated. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers repatriated as POW were summarily executed by the NKVD without exception.
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  50.  @eagle2855  never been charged with having a closed mind; quite contrary. A bit more research would help you too My comments were based on what I learned about JR when I lived in Japan.
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