Comments by "Ash Roskell" (@ashroskell) on "Can Western economies disentangle themselves from China? - BBC Newsnight" video.
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@leonie563 : It’s reassuring to me to see that other people at least, “get it,” and aren’t making the classic emotive comments. Indeed, when countries appear to be doing something patently stupid, against their own interests and threatening to world peace, we must assume that it only appears that way because we have not got the whole picture in front of us. “Population,” in this case, is as important a resource for both China and Russia, as oil or money. In fact, both countries are pretty desperate to increase their younger population numbers, to the extent that Russia has taken a drastic risk (which is backfiring painfully, I’m delighted to see) and China is considering the same thing. Artificially boosting your numbers is the only option left open to these two countries, which means literally STEALING entire populations. Hence, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Sitting in that box overlooking the Winter Olympiad, Putin and Xi must have thought that their planning session was both diabolically clever and mathematically airtight, and that the west would just keep fumbling their words instead of getting up and DOING something about it?
Yes, they thought they could dominate the world by dominating the technology markets, by owning the main production outlets of microchips and the main rare element production for microchips between them. But what they REALLY wanted was and is more PEOPLE. Especially the younger generation.
So, it’s little wonder that Xi began backing out of his, “unlimited,” relationship with Putin when he saw that even the base population of Ukraine could drive back Russia’s entire army, BEFORE all that western aid started pouring in! And then to see Putin continually botch things, literally driving out his youngest, brightest section of his population only added to their abstaining at every UN vote, rather than offering even a full throated verbal support, let alone weapons. And it certainly caused China to pause their invasion plans for Taiwan, which infuriated Xi!
But, not everyone has noticed something of potentially enormous significance. Which is that China might actually be content to turn their sights on the Russian Federation themselves, as they have just recently changed their equivalent to google maps; which now shows these southern-eastern regions of Russia (which were formerly Chinese) now have their old Mandarin Chinese names again . . . Why now? Possibly anticipating the break up of the Russian federation? Maybe planning to scoop up old territories which will be looking for economic support and, “protection,” from Russia? Maybe this will be China’s way of getting what it needs from a less incendiary source, whilst Russia, as it shrinks and falls into chaos will still NEED China more than ever and be unable to make much complaint about developments, being China’s vassal state? . . .
Not saying these things are certain, by any means. But changing your map names is not a small act, nor an unnoticed one in Moscow . . .
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These opening points are all true. “Peace through trade,” as a, “doctrine,” simply worked as a fig leaf for corruption. And we’ve seen what real harm that the gullible and the greedy (especially in Germany) did by enabling Russia to commit monstrous atrocities that we are finally just beginning to face up to. The truth is, China and Russia cannot expand their economies, or their populations, (and populations are a resource they’re just as desperate about as money) without TAKING what other countries have in the democratic world.
That is what their desire to invade Ukraine and Taiwan is driven by. They need the bodies as much as the resources. Both countries are in a population crisis, with young people leaving their countries (their best and brightest) while the rest of the population is ageing too fast. We can debate aspects of these concerns and their long term effects, but that would be to make the mistake of missing the point that this is how THEY see it.
They do want to end our democracies and they are actively working toward that goal. They see no other way forward than theft of entire regions, especially their populations, so as to inflate their own flagging workforces and intelligentsia.
This is why we cannot afford to underestimate them . . . ever again. We have been far too naive and grasping of cheap resources in the past, because of the greed of a minority in power. And that has cost us all dear. Gerard Schröder retired from politics as an incredibly wealthy man, with money he did not get on the German government’s payroll, but which had more to do with facilitating the Nordstream deals with Moscow. And look where that got them? But, does he even care? He walked away with all the money and hasn’t even been investigated.
Like I said, “Peace through trade,” as a, “doctrine,” simply worked as a fig leaf for corruption.
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Agreed. Once you’re reliant on one supplier for any vital resource, you’re placing your country’s balls in your enemy’s hands and saying, “Please don’t squeeze too hard? Or, at least wait until I’ve retired with all this money you gave me for facilitating the Nordstream pipeline, so no one’s investigating my corruption when we’re in an economic war?” Yes, I’m looking at you, Gerhard Schröder. You retired from politics a very rich man, didn’t you? You didn’t get THAT kind of money on the government payroll, did you Gerry? And now your country has shut down one pipeline whilst the other was blown up by the Kremlin and everyone wishes they hadn’t bothered . . . But you’re a very rich man and you just don’t care, right? . . .
We have been SO gullible and naive, due to grasping politicos waving around their fig leaf of, “peace through trade,” as if it was even a, “doctrine,” and not just a shabby excuse to fleece your own country, leaving entire populations to pick up the pieces after the carpet bagging is done, that we’ve forgotten that China and Russia are our self-declared ENEMIES! China’s doctrine is literally in a little red book that they give to every single school child. And it openly declares that they intend to cause the downfall of democracy worldwide! Russia’s state TV gleefully runs video scenarios of nuking Britain, nightly!
I been saying for 20 years that it was suicidally stupid to get into these deals, like FDR relying on Hirohito for his aircraft carriers in 1942! Or Churchill having all of his Spitfires and Hurricanes made by the Goering Factory in 1941! And we are JUST STARTING to get it! This is what happens when you allow small elite groups run your country: they get greedy and make themselves rich by betraying the rest of us.
Like Churchill said, “You cannot negotiate with a tiger while your head is in his mouth!”
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@simonpedge : Someone who’s not rushing to look up the, “sources,” of a complete stranger in a YT comment section is a poor definition of, “laziness,” son. If fact, it’s a, “lazy,” ad hominem. I’ll stick with my own sources, thanks. Don’t take it so personally, kid. Sometimes the grownups have got better things to do than follow junior down his rabbit holes, okay?
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@simonpedge : If you actually are, “sincere,” in your search for knowledge and wisdom, take some lessons on critical thinking? You can stare at a graph or a pie chart and think you, “see,” something that isn’t there, unless you have a context and broader understanding of the data, where that data comes from, any potential biases, any message that source intends to project, how to contextualise and cross reference data, etc, etc.
For instance, a company can stop doing business with several other entities because they are now on a sanctions list. The government that created that list is aware of the hits this company may risk as a result and arranges special deals by way of compensation. Therefore, that company may have a lower, “share of the world’s economy,” in percentage terms, but a larger turnover, contributing a higher tax revenue to overall GDP. And that’s just one single permutation of one single aspect of one single contributing factor to the information you see before you in one single chart.
Without a background in that specialism, how is Simon going to interpret that data? Pretty much the way he chooses. Will that change anything about how the world works? . . . Not really . . . Sorry, son.
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