China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge

[Tom Paine 1949]

With most Americans’ attention being directed toward our own chaotic domestic politics, Gaza and the possible cut-off of aid to Ukraine, we should not ignore the spectacular rumors and apparent chaos in China’s secretive one-party / one-man XiJinping dictatorship. Recently a Politico article summed them up rather well. Chinese observers and experts as well as Western security and business leaders have been discussing these events widely, as they may have tremendous significance in the next period. Here is a longish extract:

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping.

While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.

The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country

The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.

Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.

Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed….

Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.

What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.

With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.

Enemies everywhere

The political earthquakes rippling out from the old imperial leadership compound of Zhongnanhai are exacerbating the already dire state of the Chinese economy … In recent weeks, the country’s leading investment bank banned negative macroeconomic or market commentary …

The sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West. Not long after he ascended to chairmanship of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi began purging his real and perceived enemies in an “anti-corruption” campaign that never really ended ...

Small town boys

Former small-town officials now make up the majority of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, which wields ultimate power in China.

One such loyal figure was Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry whose career went stratospheric after he became China’s chief protocol officer, overseeing most of Chairman Xi’s interactions with foreign dignitaries between 2014 and 2018.

After a brief stint as a vice foreign minister, Qin was named ambassador to Washington in July 2021 and foreign minister barely 18 months later — a uniquely rapid rise that Chinese officialdom attributed to his proximity and personal favor with the “core leader.”

On June 25 this year, barely six months after becoming minister, Qin held meetings in Beijing with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko.

Then he vanished.

According to several people with access to high-level Chinese officials, Rudenko’s real mission in Beijing was to inform Xi that his foreign minister and several top officers in the PLA had been compromised by western intelligence agencies.

Following his disappearance, lurid tales emerged of Qin’s affair with a reporter for Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV called Fu Xiaotian, with whom he allegedly fathered a son who is a U.S. citizen. The stories circulated widely online with the apparent consent of Chinese cyber censors….

Rocket men

According to several people with access to top officials, the real reason for his abrupt disappearance was Qin’s involvement in a much more serious scandal, involving the defense minister and the generals who commanded China’s “rocket force,” which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons program.

At almost the same time Qin went missing, the top commander of the rocket force, Li Yuchao, along with his deputy Liu Guangbin and former deputy Zhang Zhenzhong, all also disappeared. Several other senior serving and former officers from the force were likewise detained and at least one former deputy commander died of unspecified illness, according to state media reports.

The missing commanders were eventually formally fired and replaced by officers from the navy and airforce …

Not long after the rocket force purge was officially acknowledged, Li Shangfu, the man Xi picked as China’s defense minister in March this year, also vanished. His formal dismissal was announced in late October.

Further adding to the intrigue was a terse state media report on the day before Qin was formally removed as foreign minister in July. It said Wang Shaojun, commander since 2015 of the Central Guard unit that protects China’s top leaders and oversees Chairman Xi’s personal bodyguard, had died three months earlier due to “ineffective medical treatment.”

China’s nuclear weapons program has massively expanded in recent years and, according to people with access to top Chinese officials, Russian Deputy Minister Rudenko’s message to Xi included allegations that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers had helped pass Chinese nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies. — [my emphasis]

Two of these people claim that Qin died, either from suicide or torture, in late July in the military hospital in Beijing that treats China’s top leaders.

Hostile forces

Given the opacity of the Chinese system, it is impossible to confirm these accounts definitively and the Chinese government does not comment on the inner workings of the Communist Party.

Senior Western intelligence officials declined to comment or discuss the matter when asked about the purges in China.

But the sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West.

China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

www.politico.eu

 

[Moonglow]

Might as well call them the gang of five.

 

[Oddball]

These are the murderous goons that own your "president".

 

[Moonglow]

These are the murderous goons that own your "president".

Why else would Trump do so much business with them?

 

[MarathonMike]

With most Americans’ attention being directed toward our own chaotic domestic politics, Gaza and the possible cut-off of aid to Ukraine, we should not ignore the spectacular rumors and apparent chaos in China’s secretive one-party / one-man XiJinping dictatorship. Recently a Politico article summed them up rather well. Chinese observers and experts as well as Western security and business leaders have been discussing these events widely, as they may have tremendous significance in the next period. Here is a longish extract:

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping.

While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.

The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country

The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.

Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.

Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed….

Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.

What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.

With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.

Enemies everywhere

The political earthquakes rippling out from the old imperial leadership compound of Zhongnanhai are exacerbating the already dire state of the Chinese economy … In recent weeks, the country’s leading investment bank banned negative macroeconomic or market commentary …

The sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West. Not long after he ascended to chairmanship of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi began purging his real and perceived enemies in an “anti-corruption” campaign that never really ended ...

Small town boys

Former small-town officials now make up the majority of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, which wields ultimate power in China.

One such loyal figure was Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry whose career went stratospheric after he became China’s chief protocol officer, overseeing most of Chairman Xi’s interactions with foreign dignitaries between 2014 and 2018.

After a brief stint as a vice foreign minister, Qin was named ambassador to Washington in July 2021 and foreign minister barely 18 months later — a uniquely rapid rise that Chinese officialdom attributed to his proximity and personal favor with the “core leader.”

On June 25 this year, barely six months after becoming minister, Qin held meetings in Beijing with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko.

Then he vanished.

According to several people with access to high-level Chinese officials, Rudenko’s real mission in Beijing was to inform Xi that his foreign minister and several top officers in the PLA had been compromised by western intelligence agencies.

Following his disappearance, lurid tales emerged of Qin’s affair with a reporter for Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV called Fu Xiaotian, with whom he allegedly fathered a son who is a U.S. citizen. The stories circulated widely online with the apparent consent of Chinese cyber censors….

Rocket men

According to several people with access to top officials, the real reason for his abrupt disappearance was Qin’s involvement in a much more serious scandal, involving the defense minister and the generals who commanded China’s “rocket force,” which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons program.

At almost the same time Qin went missing, the top commander of the rocket force, Li Yuchao, along with his deputy Liu Guangbin and former deputy Zhang Zhenzhong, all also disappeared.

Several other senior serving and former officers from the force were likewise detained and at least one former deputy commander died of unspecified illness, according to state media reports.

The missing commanders were eventually formally fired and replaced by officers from the navy and airforce, a very rare development since top commanders of the rocket force have almost always been promoted from within the service.

Not long after the rocket force purge was officially acknowledged, Li Shangfu, the man Xi picked as China’s defense minister in March this year, also vanished. His formal dismissal was announced in late October.

Further adding to the intrigue was a terse state media report on the day before Qin was formally removed as foreign minister in July. It said Wang Shaojun, commander since 2015 of the Central Guard unit that protects China’s top leaders and oversees Chairman Xi’s personal bodyguard, had died three months earlier due to “ineffective medical treatment.”

China’s nuclear weapons program has massively expanded in recent years and, according to people with access to top Chinese officials, Russian Deputy Minister Rudenko’s message to Xi included allegations that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers had helped pass Chinese nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies.

Two of these people claim that Qin died, either from suicide or torture, in late July in the military hospital in Beijing that treats China’s top leaders.

Hostile forces

Given the opacity of the Chinese system, it is impossible to confirm these accounts definitively and the Chinese government does not comment on the inner workings of the Communist Party.

Senior Western intelligence officials declined to comment or discuss the matter when asked about the purges in China.

But the sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West.

Excellent post. Decades of naivity and greed have created the Chinese Monster that is the CCP of today. We have to stop feeding the beast but I don't know how you force companies to do that without government overreach.

 

[Oddball]

Excellent post. Decades of naivity and greed have created the Chinese Monster that is the CCP of today. We have to stop feeding the beast but I don't know how you force companies to do that without government overreach.

Simple....You cut off the CCP from Wall Street and western banking, as a matter of national security.

The whole mess collapses inside a year.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Simple....You cut off the CCP from Wall Street and western banking, as a matter of national security.

The whole mess collapses inside a year.

I’m afraid it is not so simple. China would not collapse, but a total cut-off of basic trade coming from our side would probably help XiJinping consolidate an even more totalitarian and more militarized dictatorship. At least that is my [and most educated observers’] opinion.

 

[Donald H]

With most Americans’ attention being directed toward our own chaotic domestic politics, Gaza and the possible cut-off of aid to Ukraine, we should not ignore the spectacular rumors and apparent chaos in China’s secretive one-party / one-man XiJinping dictatorship. Recently a Politico article summed them up rather well. Chinese observers and experts as well as Western security and business leaders have been discussing these events widely, as they may have tremendous significance in the next period. Here is a longish extract:

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

Something is rotten in the imperial court of Chairman Xi Jinping.

While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.

The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country

The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.

Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.

Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed….

Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.

What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.

With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.

Enemies everywhere

The political earthquakes rippling out from the old imperial leadership compound of Zhongnanhai are exacerbating the already dire state of the Chinese economy … In recent weeks, the country’s leading investment bank banned negative macroeconomic or market commentary …

The sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West. Not long after he ascended to chairmanship of the Communist Party in 2012, Xi began purging his real and perceived enemies in an “anti-corruption” campaign that never really ended ...

Small town boys

Former small-town officials now make up the majority of the Standing Committee of the Politburo, which wields ultimate power in China.

One such loyal figure was Qin Gang, a former spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry whose career went stratospheric after he became China’s chief protocol officer, overseeing most of Chairman Xi’s interactions with foreign dignitaries between 2014 and 2018.

After a brief stint as a vice foreign minister, Qin was named ambassador to Washington in July 2021 and foreign minister barely 18 months later — a uniquely rapid rise that Chinese officialdom attributed to his proximity and personal favor with the “core leader.”

On June 25 this year, barely six months after becoming minister, Qin held meetings in Beijing with the foreign ministers of Sri Lanka and Vietnam, as well as Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko.

Then he vanished.

According to several people with access to high-level Chinese officials, Rudenko’s real mission in Beijing was to inform Xi that his foreign minister and several top officers in the PLA had been compromised by western intelligence agencies.

Following his disappearance, lurid tales emerged of Qin’s affair with a reporter for Chinese broadcaster Phoenix TV called Fu Xiaotian, with whom he allegedly fathered a son who is a U.S. citizen. The stories circulated widely online with the apparent consent of Chinese cyber censors….

Rocket men

According to several people with access to top officials, the real reason for his abrupt disappearance was Qin’s involvement in a much more serious scandal, involving the defense minister and the generals who commanded China’s “rocket force,” which oversees the country’s nuclear weapons program.

At almost the same time Qin went missing, the top commander of the rocket force, Li Yuchao, along with his deputy Liu Guangbin and former deputy Zhang Zhenzhong, all also disappeared. Several other senior serving and former officers from the force were likewise detained and at least one former deputy commander died of unspecified illness, according to state media reports.

The missing commanders were eventually formally fired and replaced by officers from the navy and airforce …

Not long after the rocket force purge was officially acknowledged, Li Shangfu, the man Xi picked as China’s defense minister in March this year, also vanished. His formal dismissal was announced in late October.

Further adding to the intrigue was a terse state media report on the day before Qin was formally removed as foreign minister in July. It said Wang Shaojun, commander since 2015 of the Central Guard unit that protects China’s top leaders and oversees Chairman Xi’s personal bodyguard, had died three months earlier due to “ineffective medical treatment.”

China’s nuclear weapons program has massively expanded in recent years and, according to people with access to top Chinese officials, Russian Deputy Minister Rudenko’s message to Xi included allegations that Qin and relatives of top rocket force officers had helped pass Chinese nuclear secrets to Western intelligence agencies. — [my emphasis]

Two of these people claim that Qin died, either from suicide or torture, in late July in the military hospital in Beijing that treats China’s top leaders.

Hostile forces

Given the opacity of the Chinese system, it is impossible to confirm these accounts definitively and the Chinese government does not comment on the inner workings of the Communist Party.

Senior Western intelligence officials declined to comment or discuss the matter when asked about the purges in China.

But the sensational nature of the claims themselves make clear the feverish paranoia permeating Beijing….

That paranoia extends into all parts of the bureaucracy and economy and seems to have tarnished anyone seen as too Westernized or too close to “hostile Western forces.”

One senior Chinese finance official who speaks fluent English and is a regular fixture on the international conference circuit told POLITICO by email that he could no longer attend an upcoming event outside China and was unable to speak on the phone.

He joins dozens of senior finance officials who have been removed in recent months, often after being accused of corruption.

An associate of this official said he was currently being investigated for being “too close to America” and “possibly a spy.”

This seems to be the inevitable fate of anyone who engages too eagerly with foreigners and should serve as a warning to those who still believe China is open for business with the West.

China’s Xi goes full Stalin with purge

In a sign of instability in Beijing’s top ranks, foreign policy and defense officials are vanishing as Xi roots out perceived enemies.

www.politico.eu

You need a balance of opinions Tom. Look what happened with America's hate propaganda concerning the Ukraine proxy war against Russia! The American people were fed a steady diet of optimism on the Ukraine winning.

Then the real facts leaded out and it turns out that Russia has achieved all their objectives and already won the war.

To this question on China: They were demonized by America on the treatment of the Uighurs. Then the facts leaked out that the Uighurs are Islamic terrorists but being dealt with in China in comparatively humane methods. Compared to America's policy of bringing death by carpet bombing.


Choose wisely what you believe but at least hear the whole story first.

 

[Donald H]

The history on H.K. is easy reading and it can't be twisted by anybody's propaganda.

Americans shouldn't be afraid of learning the facts!

It might encourage some Americans to learn more about China before accepting pure hate propaganda.

 

[Oddball]

I’m afraid it is not so simple. China would not collapse, but a total cut-off of basic trade coming from our side would probably help XiJinping consolidate an even more totalitarian and more militarized dictatorship. At least that is my opinion.

The Chinese economy is the most colossal Ponzi scheme on the planet....It'd collapse in a few months if cut off from Murican cash flow....There'd be no loot to pay the CCP henchmen.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Then the real facts leaked out and it turns out that Russia has achieved all their objectives and already won the war.

This is incredibly wrong and naive, as I’ve told you many times. You are extremely impressionable, and impressed by all the worst fakers — from Russian propagandists to American defeatists and apologists for Putin. I suspect you are still very young — which is my kindest explanation for your naïvete. The only way Russia and Putin “wins” is if the West lets him win by abandoning Ukraine to a miserable fate under the Russian jackboot.

As for huge and complex China, the subject of my OP, I doubt you have anything whatever to teach me about it, or about American anti-Chinese propaganda. By pretending to see all sides, you miss the main point of my OP, which concerns the dangerous developments that have undoubtedly occurred under Xi’s new personality cult and dictatorship.

Notice I have not argued for cutting off all trade with China, nor do I agree with all the idiotic self-defeating proposals that American politicians often promote about trying to destroy China economically. We do not want to convince the Chinese people that we are their enemy. We do not want to push it to become a North Korean - like dictatorship. But we need to take action to protect ourselves and our democratic allies. It is XiJinping — who is pushing his own totalitarian dictatorship and personality cult — who I now believe represents the greatest and most immediate threat to the Chinese nation.

 

[Oddball]

Laugh all you want, dickless....50 years ago, the thought of the kind of trading arrangement with the Soviet Union, that there is today with the CCP, would be an outlandish suggestion.

There're no half measures with someone who cheats the fuck out of you and is your mortal ideological enemy....Cut them off, period.

 

[luiza]

Simple....You cut off the CCP from Wall Street and western banking, as a matter of national security.

Check out their Gold reserves when the $ becomes worthless
Goodbye USLess .
No friends .

 

[Donald H]

This is incredibly wrong and naive, as I’ve told you many times. You are extremely impressionable, and impressed by all the worst fakers — from Russian propagandists to American defeatists and apologists for Putin. I suspect you are still very young — which is my kindest explanation for your naïvete.

No, I'm not young.

The only way Russia and Putin “wins” is if the West lets him win by abandoning Ukraine to a miserable fate under the Russian jackboot.

Probably true for both sides being able to win, but there's a lot more to it than that.

As for huge and complex China, the subject of my OP, I doubt you have anything whatever to teach me about it, or about American anti-Chinese propaganda.

I wonder? Are you aware of the crimes against China by the West for over a hundred years?

By pretending to see all sides, you miss the main point of my OP, which concerns the dangerous developments that have undoubtedly occurred under Xi’s new personality cult and dictatorship.

Dangerous in what way? I only see danger to America's global supremacy, but that's by peaceful means.

Notice I have not argued for cutting off all trade with China, .............

To your credit.

........... nor do I agree with all the idiotic self-defeating proposals that American politicians often promote about trying to destroy China economically. We do not want to convince the Chinese people that we are their enemy. We do not want to push it to become a North Korean - like dictatorship. But we need to take action to protect ourselves and our democratic allies. It is XiJinping — who is pushing his own totalitarian dictatorship and personality cult — who I now believe represents the greatest and most immediate threat to the Chinese nation.

America has burnt that bridge on not making China the enemy. Are you trying to say that your concern is the Chinese nation, in Xi's hands?

How could Xi's successes ever be undone? He's raised hundreds of millions of his people up out of poverty.

It's the greatest success story in history and perhaps the greatest challenge to democracy in history too!

America protecting it's allies is the Vietnam story Tom. It's bombing millions into submission to stop the dominoes from tumbling. Then they never did tumble.

 

[Oddball]

Check out their Gold reserves when the $ becomes worthless
Goodbye USLess .
No friends .

The $ is already worthless....The horse is out of the barn.

The CCP can have all the gold in the world, if nobody trades with them they can suck on it....See: Spain during their conquests.

 

[Donald H]

Laugh all you want, dickless....50 years ago, the thought of the kind of trading arrangement with the Soviet Union, that there is today with the CCP, would be an outlandish suggestion.

There're no half measures with someone who cheats the fuck out of you and is your mortal ideological enemy....Cut them off, period.

America's business interests are far more important than your faked principles sweetheart.

 

[Oddball]

America's business interests are far more important than your faked principles sweetheart.

Get the fuck back in your own lane, Goober.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Check out their Gold reserves when the $ becomes worthless
Goodbye USLess .
No friends .

That will come in handy, in fantasyland.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

I wonder? Are you aware of the crimes against China by the West for over a hundred years?

I lived in China for eight years, studied Chinese language and Chinese history even before moving there, studied this relationship for most of my adult life, and know this history inside out. My father was in China during WWII, I am married to a woman from mainland China, etc. etc.

By the way, not all the problems of China in the “hundred years of humiliation” were caused by Westerners. The situation was far more complicated than that.

America has burnt that bridge on not making China the enemy. Are you trying to say that your concern is the Chinese nation, in Xi's hands?

My concern is definitely for the Chinese, who are by no means “lost” to totalitarianism or fundamentally hostile to Americans or American culture. They are neither automatons nor blind to the regression happening under Xi’s present rule.

Of course if 1.4 billion Chinese long suffer under a single man’s cult of personality, and kneel to his corrupt single party bureaucracy, even if they are now economically more advanced and sophisticated than Russia, their society and culture will inevitably degenerate, become still more barron and corrupt, and bring nothing good to the world either.

How could Xi's successes ever be undone? He's raised hundreds of millions of his people up out of poverty.

It's the greatest success story in history and perhaps the greatest challenge to democracy in history too!

All wrong again. It was not XiJinping that led what you call “the greatest success story in history” anymore than it was Mao or Stalin. If you talk about material gains you need to credit those like DengXiaoping who fought Mao’s madness, suffered, yet came back to introduce capitalism and capitalist incentives to make China what it is today. They led the industrious, hardworking and hard-studying Chinese people onto the road to economic success, opened China to massive trade with and investment from the West, and transformed, industrialized and urbanized their country. In the process scores of millions of Chinese were educated abroad and exposed to world culture in new and profound ways.

All that is being threatened now by XiJinping’s reactionary return to Mao & Stalin’s cult of personality.

 

[ding]

This is globalism biting us in the ass.