European countries, he said, have a shared agenda with places like Japan and South Korea on issues like international law, democracy, climate change and global health.
Vassals stand together lol
“and China.” How is France’s manufacturing infrastructure?
Don’t underestimate L’oreal industries…
French President Emmanuel Macron is calling on medium-sized powers to join forces and stand up to the US and China.
He should ask the last group of countries that strove to be neutral between the USA and a second large power how well that worked for them.
Europe being hostile towards China isn’t exactly news though. It’s the break up of the Atlantic alliance that’s the real story.
Is Europe’s hostility towards China not a function of US hegemony? Surely there’s less reason to be hostile now.
In a sane world yes, but in reality there’s a lot of racism and notions of white supremacy at play here.
It is more than “racism and notions of white supremacy”, EU and China are both exporting and manufacturing powers. China recently moved into exporting the high value manufacturing products like cars which are a large part of the EUs economy making both blocks rivals.
The Chinese government is using state subsidies to tip the balance further in the favour of Chinese manufacturers. This is just one example from one industry, this pattern is repeated by China across the board. The government is well within its rights to do this but the EU is equally well within its rights to protect its own economy from a form of trade war. It is incredibly reductive to just play the racism card while ignoring the real issues.
EU is not really an export power in any meaningful sense. But even if that was true, you could make exact same argument with the US which directly competes with Europe on exports. Europeans have had absolutely no problem sticking their heads up American ass as far as possible.
Meanwhile, everybody is free to run their internal economy the way they see fit. The whole premise of free markets and capitalism was efficiency. It was supposed to naturally outcompete planned economies like China. If the model isn’t actually working then Europe could acknowledge that and emulate what China is doing instead of whinging. Or accept that they have an inferior model of economic development.
Finally, the EU very obviously doesn’t give a fuck about protecting its economy. If it did, it would’ve never allowed itself to become so dependent on energy imports from the US. The EU kept paying lip service to the idea of going green, but refused to invest into stuff like wind and solar because it came from China. Now the EU finds itself being bent over a barrel by Americans. And it’s frankly well deserved.
EU is not really an export power in any meaningful sense
Are you sure buddy? The only powers who can compete with the EU by value are China and the USA. Come correct if you are going to bother at all.
Every block is free to run their internal economy as they see fit but every other block is also free to set rules on what it determines to be illegal state aid. Sticking to the example of cars but this is also true for other Chinese industries, the whole point of the Chinese illegal state aid is to corner the international manufacturing market degrading competitors manufacturing ability before then increasing the price to profitable levels.
Europe does not need to emulate China because China is not winning in any meaningful sense against Europe. China points to its impressive year on year GDP increases without acknowledging the low levels it started at. EU GDP per capita is still 3-4 times Chinese so even at their rapid rates of growth they will not come anywhere near EU levels in our lifetimes. This is before we even consider the difference in quality of life, Chinese workers regularly doing 996 schedules with the EU having a 40 hour workweek. The EU also has a better social safety net of unemployment, pension benefits, medical, worker legal protections, food safety, I could go on all day here.
The EU dependency on Russia for energy could have been described as stupid, the current dependency on the USA is a direct result of this previous bad decision and will not be rectified overnight.
he EU kept paying lip service to the idea of going green, but refused to invest into stuff like wind and solar because it came from China.
What are you on about, the EU has purchased more than 50% of China’s exports of solar panels and wind turbines , with 98% of the EUs solar panel imports coming from China. When you need to make stuff up to back up your point it’s probably not a very good one.
Yup, the EU is free to set rules that harm its own economy. Has been working out real great for y’all, like when you made the brilliant decision not to invest in solar and wind from China. And you keep using this word, illegal, I don’t think it means what you think it means.
LMFAO imagine thinking China is not winning against Europe. Last I checked China has basic things like energy and fertilizer that are out of reach of geniuses in Europe. And sure buddy, quality of life, tell me more about that https://www.businessinsider.com/typical-chinese-adult-now-richer-than-europeans-wealth-report-finds-2022-9
And yes, such amazing solar and wind build outs in EU, that they don’t even shift the needle now that Gulf energy is cut off.
You’re very misinformed on worker rights on China and overlooking that Europe isn’t consistent in worker rights internally, the welfare and rights depend heavily on every state. You’re also pretending that a deindustrializing region is in any way comparable to the factory of the world with a straight face. Europe benefits greatly from past colonialism and current neocolonialism, so of course the GDP per capita will be high. Just wait for Africa and Latin America to become more sovereign and it will all crumble.
There’s the whole democracy thing.
In that China is one and Europe isn’t, you mean?
do go on
- https://www.newsweek.com/most-china-call-their-nation-democracy-most-us-say-america-isnt-1711176
- https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2021/0218/Vilified-abroad-popular-at-home-China-s-Communist-Party-at-100
- https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-26/which-nations-are-democracies-some-citizens-might-disagree
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230511041927/https://6389062.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/6389062/Canva images/Democracy Perception Index 2023.pdf
- https://www.tbsnews.net/world/china-more-democratic-america-say-people-98686
- https://web.archive.org/web/20201229132410/https://en.news-front.info/2020/06/27/studies-have-shown-that-china-is-more-democratic-than-the-united-states-russia-is-nearby-and-ukraine-is-at-the-bottom/
Congress at 15% approval rating is damning for democracy. FYI, 26% of Americans believes the sun revolves around the earth, and so that 15% is the functionally full tropic thundered not aware of how bad it is.
Elaborate
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Jesus Christ. Westerners really are the most brainwashed people on earth
The fact Europe still hasn’t broken all ties with Israel over their human rights abuses tells me their supposed democratic values are more window dressing than anything.
Europe is led by material interests, not democratic values.
Europe is led by material interests, not democratic values.
And it’s not even their own material interest lol
They/most of them have Zionist supremacist laws forbidding speech against genocide.
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You realise we have democracy in China right? Just not western style liberal democracy.
Europe is the lesser evil for whom? Certainly not the victims of European colonialism and imperialism.
And when you look, you’ll see those former colonies are getting closer with Russia and China.
With uh…minimal due derision, this isn’t a theory that holds up to scrutiny or even makes sense internally
It is an important distinction though, because standing up to US might imply leaning towards China. But standing up to US and China, implies a third option: Europe need to huddle up together.
Not really sure how that works in practice given that Europe isn’t exactly self sufficient, especially in terms of energy.
I was only commenting on the semantic distinction of the two, not the viability of Europe superiority - though beating Murica these days can’t be impossible.
Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan, and any remaining Uyghur people might disagree.
Thank you for taking your valuable time from huffing gas to grace us with your profound insights.
Aw fuck. Didn’t see where I was.
not beating the accusations of huffing gas there
He says some bullshit like that every other week or so. He’ll be back to being a good vassal next week
Macron - a true american hero for saying out loud what most people think.
This is all political theatre. European countries continue to host US bases from which operations against Iran are currently being carried out.
Yes, but not all are allowing operations that support the war on Iran
i wonder if it’s a cover strategy for getting access to hormuz
Middle powers need friends. US offers only colonial vassal status withe CIA determined rulers. China does not. Just buy stuff because it is best value/cheap. In the prehistory that was 2021, Russia did not vassalize its customers. Just buy their stuff because it was cheapest. Russia is not an imperial power over Europe because of counterbalance. Russia did not threaten/berate EU over green transition. Trump/Biden threatened EU over Nordstream 2. When your master extorts you with energy prices and forced war, you need new friends. The more friends, the more counterbalance for others to be friendlier to you.
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“surely our enemies are as evil as us!”
Im not from the USA and quite lefty haha. But it is telling that by stating a truth, the post was removed by a lemmy.ml mod.
We can see it in the modlog, so it’s not a real issue. The modlog says you posted misinformation, and after reading the message I concur. The vast majority of the global south are clearly aware that China is a better partner because they don’t force us to take predatory loans, restructure your economy, apply austerity, etc. They recognize our sovereignty and invest in development and infrastructure. They even pardoned a lot of debt in Africa.
If you’re missing this key difference (and, you know, how the US, usually with their vassals, keep carpet bombing random countries, forcing regime changes and hitting civilians of neutral countries with drones, while China hasn’t dropped a bomb for decades) then we can’t treat you seriously.
Finally, whether you consider yourself a lefty or not, until you deconstruct more, inform yourself and stand in solidarity with the people of the global south you’re not my comrade. Our world is built on our backs to support the excesses of empire, and China is building an alternative.
“truth” here meaning “baseless jingoism”
“My paranoid bullshit was not tolerated in the company of the informed, really makes you think (about how I’m right and the mods are 1864 Animal Factory)”
“Our objective is not to be the vassals of two hegemonic powers,” he told students in Seoul. “We don’t want to depend on the dominance, let’s say on China, or we don’t want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of the US.”
European countries, he said, have a shared agenda with places like Japan and South Korea on issues like international law, democracy, climate change and global health.
European countries, he said, have a shared agenda with places like Japan and South Korea on issues like international law, democracy, climate change and global health.
This reads to me that american vassals in europe have a shared agenda with american vassals in asia.
we don’t want to be too much exposed to the unpredictability of the US.”
The war with Iran was announced in 2001. The unpredictability of the US is that it took them so long.
US being at war is fairly predictable, tbh.
Finally someone says it.
