Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Lei's Real Talk" channel.

  1. ​Yeah I was in Indonesia when COVID struck, and remember later reading how the health workers they prioritized with Sinovac kept dying compared to the ones getting Pfizer.
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  2. Right, Mandarin isn't all that useful outside of China itself, especially when competing against older diaspora reading/writing Traditional Script speaking Cantonese and Minnan. China's huge lack of an attractive modern culture is bound to keep it that way, limiting learners to overwhelmingly those with heritage or specific business interests.
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  3. That's why the survival of Taiwan is so important, because the ROC government might be able to claim legitimacy or at least provide a democratic template for what remains on the Mainland. Otherwise China risks yet another cycle of autocratic emperor/one-party rule as the people look for the fastest (and likely not best seeing how often it happens) path to political stabilization.
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  4. I've also noticed degrading quality in Lei's essays. I'm here for critical analysis of Chinese-language reports, not parroting of secondhand English ones by less nuanced corporate translators.
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  5. It's unlikely she "contracted" cancer as much as was already developing it like people normally do, but it wasn't discovered until she started regularly coming to the clinic for those shots.
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  6. The whole Russian Army is regretting their bulk buy of cheap Chinese tyres too 📌
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  7. China just doesn't construct with quality in mind. I remember recently living in Africa how old European colonial buildings still get some use even today, while the locals worry about how little concrete and rebar seem to go into what the Chinese are putting up nowadays (on top of clashing with the surrounding architecture and looking the same from site to site).
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  8. The West can more easily divest out of China and diversify manufacturing sources (a lot of which is in consideration if not already begun), whereas China polluted and depleted too much of its own farmlands to feed itself. "There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy", and sanctions and/or scare-off of civilian ship traffic with the needed seeds would quickly devastate the Mainland. Hence the huge public push to regain agricultural self-reliance, which will be harder to achieve with New China's chemical defilement of its waters and soils as well as hesitation to experiment (considering how often experiments naturally fail).
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  9. Nobody in my circles had complications from the vaccines (both Pfizer and Moderna), but we all got floored to various degrees by COVID itself. I do know some people who died from either COVID, or from lack of emergency care due to hospitals being slammed by COVID patients (the latter case included the last of my grandparents).
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  10. It would still be inefficient due to their pressure to keep people employed, undereducated because they still won't tolerate the dissent required for creativity and critical thought, and domineering from their anxiety to retain power at all costs.
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  11. The Party has delusions about how well liked their "new China" is abroad. They took a scene straight from Wolf Warrior 2 and thought reality would be just like their movies.
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  12. Right, a Straits war is primarily in the air and at sea, which are not the weapons we're sending over to our allies to fight the land wars that are getting sparked.
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  13. Lei? She's been anti-CPC since she was a college student in the US when 1989 happened.
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  14. It's always better to design around cargo, because storage space can be easily made habitable but not the other way around. A warehouse can have internal walls installed for offices or shops. A barge can become a houseboat. A passenger 747 is literally an airfreighter with seats bolted on. Doing the reverse to a human-centered apartment, cruise ship, or A380 isn't nearly as practical.
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  15. I'm curious about your take on ASEAN countries, who are famously non-interventionist and try as much as possible to have every aid provider compete for their favors. Are they reaching the limits of avoiding choosing a side?
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  16. "It takes three years to build a ship, three-hundred to build a reputation." --Admiral Andrew Cunningham
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  17. Bush Sr. invited in the PRC, Bush Jr. accelerated the trade deficit, and Trump ejected the US from a counterbalancing TPP. Big business Republicans are the driving cause of Communist China's rise.
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  18. It'd be great if the former came true, but I'd bet on the latter happening -- there's just too much self-serving indulgent debauchery among those in power (or rising in power) for real reconciliation with the transparency and justice that the Chinese people deserve.
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  19. It's hard to believe the Chinese state claims either, with their habitual inflation of statistics over the past couple decades. Having lived in China I realize that the more pessimistic news about the place tends to be closer to reality.
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  20. What irritates the Party most is how Táiwān provides living proof of what Chinese society could achieve without them.
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  21. They always have been, internal unrest is just as big a part of Chinese history as top-down rule.
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  22. Whether it's late-stage capitalism or centrally-planned economies, the biggest hindrance to innovation is high barriers to entry against newcomers by the entrenched incumbents.
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  23. It was somewhat cringe watching it, not from the reversal of roles, but how campy and cartoonish all the acting felt. The "Americans" were especially wooden (not to mention casted with Eastern Europeans and without any black dudes who were definitely fighting alongside by then), and used language that felt like the scriptwriters did their homework out of comic books when there's plenty of other media and even living veterans who could tell you how they would really shoot and scoot. I'd imagine an American take on the same battle would focus more on the cycle of daytime movements and nighttime battles, the constant struggle of keeping everyone and everything together, and probably be even more sympathetic to the average PVA grunt than their own movie portrayed. Like I could see an episode of how an old PVA veteran would panic to try sleeping with any light around because he was traumatized by American air raids.
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  24. The CPC is clearly evil, but replacement by Falun Gong I don't see as being much better overall. Its leadership steers the practice towards regressive intolerant aims, and ultimately theocratic politics is arguably even worse than what China has now because all dissent from the dogma and those who institute it constitutes a direct attack on the entire faith, as opposed to an "isolated" corrupt official or lower level implementation.
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  25. Right, China already has fundamental issues with unreversed aging, overleveraged debts, and chemical pollution of its lands, which combined with rising labor costs basically eradicates further opportunities for easy profits. Part of the reason for the "wolf warrior" attitude these days may be anxiety over how the Party can justify its continued tolerance by the Chinese people.
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  26. Forcibly seizing Taiwan would not gain their IC fab capabilities because the fabs are easily sabotaged, inputs easily polluted, and the extremely specialized engineers who work on them would be largely dead or evacuated. What's more likely is that the Mainland's current economic downturn continues with internal unrest becoming alarmingly bold, and Xi mobilizes the PLA to cross the Strait in order to salvage the respect for his Party.
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  27. That's ignoring how cell phones have been the most perfect espionage device for decades now
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  28. Táiwān is a bad example? Before democratization the KMT was just as ideological and tyrannical -- there's a reason the US abandoned the blatantly corrupt ROC government at the end of WWII and basically let the then-allied Communists take over. But since then the ROC fell to rule by its people, and now the main threat to the Mainland being what China could be without the one unchallenged Party.
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  29. Baby formula industry is a very concentrated industry, much like meat processing. There's only like 5 manufacturers so a shock in any one of them (as had happened recently also with tainted formula) quickly constricts supply and makes prices surge.
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  30. The mistakes are that they're relying on less effective Russian equipment and combat doctrines, especially with trying to provide logistics in hostile territory. Numbers alone no longer determine battles as decisively in the face of combined arms and precision munitions. Ukraine is probably the biggest shock to the PLA since the Gulf War, when they realized that they're structured too similar to the curb-stomped Iraqi Army.
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  31. Similar to why the Korean War lasted so long. Mao kept balking at negotiations as long as Stalin kept supplying the PLA and supporting his consolidation of power in the new PRC. The ceasefire only took effect after Stalin died and Soviet aid dried up.
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  32. I lived in sub-Saharan Africa not too long ago on a two year work assignment. Locals were overwhelmingly more pro-Western than their politicians who are infamously not examples of transparent governance. They also comment on their greater suspicions about China's intentions, and how what Chinese companies build not only all looks the same (not to mention clashes with the surroundings) but also are alarmed at how little rebar and concrete gets put into those projects. The feeling I got living there is that ultimately Europe and the US provide opportunities, while China provides QA rejects.
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  33. I'd imagine if the PRC takes Quemoy and Matsu, Western powers are going to seriously reconsider their trade relations and overall "One China" policy in general. The Taiwanese independence movement could be emboldened, other nations will not protest if not encourage this split, and meanwhile Mainlanders are going to ask very discomforting questions on why their sales and salaries collapsed while prices of basics skyrocket.
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  34. Especially seeing how un-American the "Americans" were. We'd likely produce a whole TV series just to show how we actually spoke and fought on the road to Hamheung. Of course including "advancing in another direction" fueled by literal Tootsie Rolls.
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  35. There's also the chronic statistical inflation towards "1.4 billion", which could likewise inflate the estimated death toll.
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  36. Most Taiwanese don't think of themselves as "Chinese" anymore, and they strongly value their democracy. Plus Táiwān is very defensible (there's a reason it wasn't invaded during WWII), and the population is well exposed to military life with increasing emphasis on asymmetric warfare lately. If anything Táiwān would be the Afghanistan of Běijīng.
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  37. It's just like a royal family, just tied by ideology instead of bloodline but with all the same conspiracies and backstabbings. China under yet another autocratic dynasty means it's just as vulnerable to yet another cycle of violent overthrow.
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  38. He's likely more accurate with what he wants to say in Chinese. Plus his anti-Party sentiments carry more weight when spoken in Putonghua for other Chinese to understand directly. The problem with leaving China as a Chinese especially during Zero-COVID is that the policy actively discourages departure for other than business or education or some other activity that supports "development" of the nation -- the immigration officer has he authority to cancel the passport (by snipping the MRZ of the data page) of anyone whose answers they suspect. An itinerary to an "enemy" Anglophone country would be especially scrutinized, and entering that country goes through a lot of the same questioning of "What are your plans here?" and "How did you convince China to let you out given the stricter exit policies?". These conditions explain why specifically irregular entries by Chinese nationals has surged.
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  39. I found it amusing that the video wrote the "Nice to meet you" phrase in Simplified (妳好,认识你很高兴!), but in the subtitles it's in Traditional (妳好,認識你很高興!)
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  40.  @debabratabanerjee7461  On land there's plenty of chances for casual combatants to organize ambushes. It's not the same in the sea and air where superior technology and experience determines the victor, and with China there won't be any offensive land operation on the part of the Americans to get sucker punched on patrol by.
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  41. Unlike the classic way of thinking that power comes through strength, Western democracies like to show that power comes through creativity and adaptation. I've heard that both Nazi German and Soviet adversaries found it difficult to plan against American battle doctrine because the first thing we'd do is toss the manual and try something else.
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  42. Likely by attacking the long-range guidance assets that it relies on to get within final striking distance. The faster it flies, the less mistakes it can make along the way before becoming a very expensive dud.
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  43. ​ @brmnyc1984 Right, I was in Indonesia when COVID struck, and remember later reading about how the health workers who were prioritized for those first shipments of Sinovac didn't fare nearly as well compared to the ones getting Pfizer.
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  44. Many of which follow a similar copy-paste template, yet YouTube seems more sensitive to corporate critics and demonetizing independent reporters. Obviously Alphabet doesn't see crypto scam spam as a priority.
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  45. Thousands are estimated to have perished in 2021 on a highway in Zhengzhou alone, when flash flooding submerged a kilometers-long tunnel during rush hour. Yet they say all of Henan province only suffered 200 dead.
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  46. No but SARS-2 is just another seasonal respiratory disease now. Viruses naturally have to get weaker in order to survive and keep spreading.
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  47. Even Africa isn't that passionate to stand with China when the chips are down. I've lived there, and to the average local (not the sellout politician) China presents an opportunity for transaction but not so much an inspiration to achieve like Europe or America.
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  48. It's ironic how even though Chinese people highly value education, the most valuable education then and now comes from violating the mental bounds and social prescriptions of China.
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  49. Chances are the next Miss Didi will come from South or SE Asia
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  50. "Politically correct" in English carries different connotations though. The "PC" crowd is all about inclusion and rectifying the inequalities that categorizing humans created; even the most militant ones would be at best a nuisance for pushing minor language changes like "they" and "Latinx". Meanwhile the "correct" in the Communist sense is found among social conservatives: this is the side that in America terrorizes family planning institutions, questions democracy, proliferates opportunities for violence, and advocates for economic strongmen to continue entrenching themselves into monopoly by taking down regulations. With further rebuilds of strict gender roles and racial hierarchy as they gain dominance.
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