Ah yes the cliche practice of making a loose blanket counter claim based on false assumptions to suggest that any critical view of China is inherently flawed due to the bias of being American.
Ah yes, the knee-jerk reaction to simple factual statements that reveal the biases of the commenter, through how they imagine the other comment was motivated. No, sorry, but the statement is factual. Both the US and China have laws that are selectively enforced.
I wonder if you even live in North America, the difference is night and day.
No one said anything about relative severity. That part is entirely in your own head. If you disagree, please provide a quote. Also ask yourself, why do you imagine such motivations, and react so strongly? I think that would be most instructive.
I was born in and have lived in the US all my life. I have an Ivy league education and lots of life experience at all levels of the socioeconomic ladder. I think I have a good sense of this society's biases. (From both the political left and the right.)
The rule of law is interpreted as it is. Context should never be used as an excuse to say that the law doesn't work.
In the US, context is used to abrogate principles as fundamental as "innocent until proven guilty." That's simply fact. I never said the US was just as bad at protecting intellectual property. I merely stated that both the US and China bend the rule of law based on context. I didn't specify the contexts. You imagined contexts that you could get incensed about, apparently.
What evidence is there to support the US is a pre-ww2 imperial power? Please explain.
Why in heck would you ask that? Where did I ever say the US is a pre-ww2 imperial power? Congrats: another ham-fisted attempt to put words in my mouth.
Where do you live?
The Bay Area.
What Ivy league did you attend?
Dartmouth.
Which country has better enforced laws for businesses and the economy without violating human rights and freedom of speech?
I've always maintained the US is great in these regards. However, the US also violates human rights and while quite good, isn't perfect when it comes to freedom of speech. Please provide a quote where you had evidence I ever thought otherwise.
You claimed "United States of America is an imperial power" by "US Imperialism".
How can a former colony be now a colonizer? The pre-ww2 colonialism simply doesn't exist. It's not in America's interest to strip a country of their resources causing regional unstability. America's vision is to put everybody on their trading platform eventually in order to instill global prosperity and maintain their hegemony status. There's more benefits of being a US ally than joining China or Russia at this point and we've seen even countries like Vietnam, put away their differences and gravitate towards the US, their arch nemesis because the idea of Chinese regional hegemony scares them.
So you graduated from a lower tier Ivy League school do you seriously think you will send your offspring to Beijing University while their elite are sending their offsprings to attend US Ivy League instead of BU? Obviously, China has not managed to attract the world's elite to move their for the Chinese dream, it has managed to chase away all of their wealthy class with it's draconian policies and human rights violations money can't buy.
Please help me understand how US is equally violating of human rights and freedom of speech on the level China & Russia is getting away with. I'm genuinely curious to hear what an Ivy Leaguer has to say.
Again my question, if you seriously believe that the US is equal in terms of quality of life to China, what is preventing you from chasing the Chinese dream instead of the American dream?
By becoming a major power, getting in wars with colonial powers, and stealing their colonies directly, as well as establishing it's own sphere of influence through hard and soft power by other means.
The US set the stage on this with the Monroe Doctrine, but the Spanish-American War made it a lot more concrete. And, more recently, there's the whole history of Cold War interventionism, and the post-Cold-War action in the Balkans and the Middle East and North Africa.
> It's not in America's interest to strip a country of their resources causing regional unstability
And yet officials of the last US administration cited exactly such resource concerns when describing why the similar rhetoric on Iraq and North Korea manifested such dissimilar substantive policy. It may not be in the US's real interests (however you define and assess that) to do that, be it has time and again been manifestly central to the interest actually pursued by US leadership.
becoming all of those things does not make them a pre-ww2 colonial power, the cold war spawned a new style of colonialism one based on common ideologies and none of the fighting done by the "colonial powers".
The US did not crush dissent with tanks like USSR did in Czech and satellite nations.
The US did not invade countries as a means to their resources but to counter USSR imperialism.
The USSR was an imperial colonizer directly taking over countries with force to further their borders, the US have always reacted to USSR aggression: ex. Cuban missile crisis, Afghanistan & backing of Taliban.
The differences are day and night, the US actively trying to suppress Soviet nuclear proliferation and communist expansionism that is the same as colonialism from pre-WW2 days.
Do you really want Iraq, North Korea, Iran to be nuclear armed? The US knows these countries are too unstable to be responsible enough to control their nuclear weapons. This is why the US tolerates Pakistan because downright distabilizing it is against their interests and national security.
What do you think is in North Korea? There's absolutely no resource worth going to war over. The US doesn't even need Iraq's oil, why do you think they went to war in the 90s? It was to protect Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to stop further destabilization.
Destabilizing = Increased probability of nuclear weapons falling to terrorist and unfriendly groups = Nightmare scenario for US security interests & allies = Breakdown of economic trade & diplomacy = global chaos.
The US simply is not the traditional colonial power but does the absolute minimum to protect it's interests in regions where if things went south, it would affect global trade = less action for IMF & World Bank = reduced control over the variables that threaten the economic infrastructure that was born out of Nixon's era by going off the gold standard = US dollar is the de facto commodity in which all other currencies are pegged against = economic hegemony.
I hope that makes it clear, the US has no interest in invading Mexico to impose ethnocentric views and usurp all of it's wealth using military power. Even Russia is unable to escape the sting of US led sanctions. Pressure is mounting on China to float their Yuan which would crush it's value against the USD sending it to a major recession.
The US practices economic warfare to keep countries in line, it is not an imperial power in the traditional sense which would require direction action to achieve their economic goals.
They figured out long time ago it's easier to catch bees with honey than vinegar, this is why I believe the American "empire" will last for a very long time as long as the economic incentives are there in countries where structural oppression of the masses is automatically produced as a result of having a democratic and capitalist markets.
Instead of losing your palaces you keep them and your offsprings are sent to a great US school where they will learn to be American and impose American values back in their countries where they become leaders.
Even in relatively poor countries like China and Russia where the wealth is almost directly usurped by it's elite class, they must also be able to buy US dollars to spend on materialistic ambitions, essentially unwittingly doing their part in solidifying the status quo in which the US continues to maintain it's hegemony status with it's old enemies trying to find their place to keep their elite class well fed and spoiled.
The people now suffer in the hands of their own leaders as a result of having their monetary incentives aligned with the US led global economy. Essentially countries are colonizing itself due to economic incentives the US presents to individuals who vote with their taste for luxury.
It's the perfect "empire" one that exploits our innate desire to chase after rare goods (US dollar) which benefits the individual but makes their country dependent on the US and surrounding countries, there by greatly increasing the cost of breaking bad and attempting to usurp neighbour countrie's resources. Ex. Just like how Saddam like previous dictators, tried to escape the system created by the US in which the US will use military power to keep countries in line and play nice with each other.
I'm not saying America is perfect but the world has become a lot more stable as a result of their status. American leadership is not only desired but necessary to maintain peace and further quality of life for countries that play the the game well. The downside is the game is rigged and the US will always win as a result of the world using greenback as underlying value for the world's currency.
Ah yes, the knee-jerk reaction to simple factual statements that reveal the biases of the commenter, through how they imagine the other comment was motivated. No, sorry, but the statement is factual. Both the US and China have laws that are selectively enforced.
I wonder if you even live in North America, the difference is night and day.
No one said anything about relative severity. That part is entirely in your own head. If you disagree, please provide a quote. Also ask yourself, why do you imagine such motivations, and react so strongly? I think that would be most instructive.
I was born in and have lived in the US all my life. I have an Ivy league education and lots of life experience at all levels of the socioeconomic ladder. I think I have a good sense of this society's biases. (From both the political left and the right.)
The rule of law is interpreted as it is. Context should never be used as an excuse to say that the law doesn't work.
In the US, context is used to abrogate principles as fundamental as "innocent until proven guilty." That's simply fact. I never said the US was just as bad at protecting intellectual property. I merely stated that both the US and China bend the rule of law based on context. I didn't specify the contexts. You imagined contexts that you could get incensed about, apparently.