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2017-08-13 China-Japan-Koreas

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Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11127 views ] Top

#1 I think China does not want us to invade and find out that China is up to their eyeballs in the Nork nuclear development program. Morons.

Posted by gorb 2017-08-13 00:26|| 2017-08-13 00:26|| Front Page Top

#2 Another moron expat who doesn't speak Chinese is going to tell us what the Chinese are really about.

Posted by Harcourt Angoluting9366 2017-08-13 01:02|| 2017-08-13 01:02|| Front Page Top

#3 China does not want dead sons. That would create a clear and present danger to their plans.

Dear unsung genius, due to their brilliant "one child" policy, China has a large superabundance of young men relative to young women. I'm sure somebody with your, no doubt superb education, can figure out what it leads to (just kidding).

p.s. bad link

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 02:30|| 2017-08-13 02:30|| Front Page Top

#4 Okay I'll grant that I'm no expert, just a guy in China. They have not experienced war for a long time, and last time they did, they did not have a one child policy. So, many of those who die will be a family's only child. I seriously doubt many families want to lose a generation just for NK.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 04:26|| 2017-08-13 04:26|| Front Page Top

#5 What, you actually wrote this? Seriously? China has a HUGE surplus male problem. 30 million or more loser men who have zero hope of ever having a family. They are a giant potential source of future unrest. A war is one of the typical scenarios of getting rid of these bare branches.

Please stop enlightening others with your special brand of China wisdom. Learn Chinese, move out of Beijing and get back to us in half a decade.

Posted by Harcourt Angoluting9366 2017-08-13 06:32|| 2017-08-13 06:32|| Front Page Top

#6 I'm sure somebody with your, no doubt superb education, can figure out what it leads to

Manlove?

Posted by Skidmark 2017-08-13 06:41|| 2017-08-13 06:41|| Front Page Top

#7 "China just wants to tend to it's own business"

I sure hope you're not teaching English.

Posted by Harcourt Angoluting9366 2017-08-13 06:43|| 2017-08-13 06:43|| Front Page Top

#8 Channeling a Lib Arts graduate, Skid - I'm afraid real world doesn't work this way.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 06:46|| 2017-08-13 06:46|| Front Page Top

#9 They do indeed have a huge male surplus, but many of them are an only child. Their prospects are dim, I agree, but nonetheless they are loved by their families. I am quite amused by the hostility my remarks have received. This is my 4th trip here and I am indeed learning the language and very interested in figuring out the culture. Chongqing, by the way, not Beijing. BA in Philosophy, BS in Computer Science, MBA. I have no military experience but not for lack of trying - I got P3'd for having kidney stones twice in high school, so the US Army would not let me enlist. I wish they would have let me in, as few things seem more effective at building men than serving their country. I may be a newb but I'm not a troll or troublemaker, chill out.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 07:33|| 2017-08-13 07:33|| Front Page Top

#10 Beau, please not that my & Harcourt Angoluting9366 remarks were directed toward the author, not you.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 07:55|| 2017-08-13 07:55|| Front Page Top

#11 Haha Grom, I was the author! But that is okay. Just sharing what I see living here day in and day out with the Chinese. I think it's perfectly fine for others more expert to doubt/ridicule my conclusions. I am just trying to add a little perspective from someone living in China who has been reading Rantburg for 15 years. Everyone I have met here is in awe of the US military, and no one on the streets wants a conflict with us. My best guess is Trump will call Xi, give him some cover to save face, do his business in 24-72 hours, and hand over NK to China. No Chinese die, and China gets to be the rescuer of all the civilians in NK.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 08:20|| 2017-08-13 08:20|| Front Page Top

#12 Haha Grom, I was the author!
I'm not sure that not indicating this explicitly was entirely polite.

I am just trying to add a little perspective from someone living in China

Are you familiar with the expression "forest for the trees"? For example: how many people in Europe 1913 anticipated WWI?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 08:28|| 2017-08-13 08:28|| Front Page Top

#13 Send ten million emperors to battle
You've raised with a mobile for rattle?
Add VR and gaming...
They'll scarcely need taming,
And die in the silicone saddle.

Or not. Sad either way.

Posted by Zenobia Floger6220 2017-08-13 08:31|| 2017-08-13 08:31|| Front Page Top

#14 Grom, I am just saying China does not want a ground war with the US. Sure, they have a huge army that can provide incredible resistance to anyone who wants to invade China, but to my knowledge there is no one, anywhere, considering such a stupid act. For posturing purposes (to keep Taiwan and Hong Kong in check, for example), they must say the USA cannot attack NK. But, I really don't think they care, as long as no US boots creep up on their border.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 08:39|| 2017-08-13 08:39|| Front Page Top

#15 Grom, I am just saying China does not want a ground war with the US.

People, Beau, people - not leadership. And people are easily manipulated.

p.s. Who told you people talking to you were not just being polite - just google "chinese anti americanism"?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 08:46|| 2017-08-13 08:46|| Front Page Top

#16 Can someone who knows Chinese tell me the word for 'Kayfabe' in their language?

Posted by Thing From Snowy Mountain 2017-08-13 10:03|| 2017-08-13 10:03|| Front Page Top

#17 Sure, but what is Kayfabe in English? I'm afraid I don't know it.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 10:44|| 2017-08-13 10:44|| Front Page Top

#18 It's a wrestling term. Kayfabe is pretending the action is real for the marks.

Posted by Secret Master 2017-08-13 10:50|| 2017-08-13 10:50|| Front Page Top

#19 And Kayfabe in Chinese is... Kayfabe. Same as it is in English, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and all other civilized wrestling nations!

Posted by Secret Master 2017-08-13 10:53|| 2017-08-13 10:53|| Front Page Top

#20 "China does not want a ground war with the US" I don't think I've heard anyone speak of China Vs US. Neither wants war with the other.

The issue as I see it, is China willing to go against North Korea (i) to ensure the hermit kingdom remains in their sphere of influence rather than a united and pro-west peninsula (ii) the US doesn't find evidence of how much help the Chinese have provided NK in order to annoy the US over the years (iii) prevent a massive refuge crisis.

The second issue is how (invasion or coup).

It is in China's best interest to remove NK. Trump is playing the crazy barbarian roll to allow the NK and China to save face but they need to step up.

Posted by rjschwarz 2017-08-13 10:55|| 2017-08-13 10:55|| Front Page Top

#21 Thanks Master! I was a wrestler as a kid, but never heard of that. I knew a sword fighter though later in life who said "If someone tries to trick you, you should pretend their trick worked". Maybe it's like that.

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 10:57|| 2017-08-13 10:57|| Front Page Top

#22 Ah, I see. In China this is known as "Marco Polo syndrome". Someone gets to China and thinks he's the first one to ever have such insights, unaware that he's just repeating anything that pops into his dim bulb. Since he just got to China, he's unaware of the pedestrian nature of his 'wisdom'. It's related to the Dunning-Kreuger effect.

Posted by Harcourt Angoluting9366 2017-08-13 11:16|| 2017-08-13 11:16|| Front Page Top

#23 Harcourt, not sure why you are so hateful. Why is it bad to give street level feedback from someone actually living in China? Do you live in China? Do you speak Chinese? Do you walk around and work every day with Chinese people? I don't think so. I do all of the above. How is your life in mom's basement?

Posted by Beau 2017-08-13 11:38|| 2017-08-13 11:38|| Front Page Top

#24 hateful

An interesting word

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2017-08-13 12:08|| 2017-08-13 12:08|| Front Page Top

#25 Suck it up Beau.
Rantburg is one of the last bastions of free expression left in this or any world you may have visited. The personal or professional expression of any contributor is generally welcome. Even 'hateful' HA.

Sympathies for your stones.

Posted by Skidmark 2017-08-13 12:53|| 2017-08-13 12:53|| Front Page Top

#26 "ah so desu ka." Trump typed on Twitter early one a.m. “Despite the constant negative press covfefe” He probably meant to type "Kayfabe."

Posted by JohnQC 2017-08-13 15:02|| 2017-08-13 15:02|| Front Page Top

#27 In my opinion, this was a great exchange today. A fine example of Rantburg exchanges. A pleasure just to follow as a casual reader.

Posted by Dale 2017-08-13 15:47|| 2017-08-13 15:47|| Front Page Top

#28 Thank you for sharing your perspective, Beau, which clearly is generating discussion. Next time just add by Beau at the top of the text, and that will clarify authorship immediately. I took care of it before writing this comment -- usually I catch such things before publishing, but I've been mostly unavailable this weekend while working at the Cincinnati Blues Society's annual summer festival.

Some thoughts after reading your post and the comments, not terribly well organized:

I have been wondering how China would respond to a president clearly capable of intemperate action, as President Trump is. I've read here at Rantburg that China had expected to replace America's economic hegemony within this generation, but that militarily they have only about two decades before those single men with no prospects are too old for military service, with considerably fewer available to put on the uniform thereafter, and those even more precious to their families.

North Korean women have been escaping to China for a while, and have been marrying or servicing the Chinese men who lacked the means to acquire Chinese brides for nearly as long. When the border opens, that trend will accelerate, leaving North Korean men bereft. According to the CIA World Factbook, North Korea has about 2 million females aged 15-24; I would guess that a quarter to half of them will choose despised security once the border opens, helping the Chinese situation, and no doubt young women with poor prospects from other countries will follow suit. Their impure offspring will no doubt be second class citizens both in China and back home, but that is a follow-on concern, of no moment when the alternative is no family at all. They won't offset all, or probably even most of the aborted females, but it will be less bad.

As we saw in Romania, under totalitarian regimes the tyrant can blithely ignore or manipulate the populace until a tipping point is reached, after which the deposed tyrant and his henchmen -- possibly in the form of horribly mutilated corpses -- will have no say in events. China's rulers went for economic improvement rather than the political improvement chosen by the Soviet Union, and thus far the people have been pleased with the outcome, but the growing bourgeoisie class is starting to expect the same things expected by middle classes in the First World -- clean air and water, safe housing, a trustworthy banking system, good schools... and the lives of only sons not thrown away for wars with no benefit. Even the Nazis backed off when the Aryan wives of Jewish men who'd been rounded up spontaneously showed up at headquarters en masse to demand their husbands back, and though the men could not work thereafter, they were left strictly alone by the government.

In these days of the internet and satellite phones, no matter how strictly censored, the impact of masses of parents blaming the Communist Party for their sons' deaths could be that tipping point the leadership has feared since the beginning of liberalization.

Posted by trailing wife 2017-08-13 17:40|| 2017-08-13 17:40|| Front Page Top

#29 And there is the TW hammer!

Posted by Skidmark 2017-08-13 18:03|| 2017-08-13 18:03|| Front Page Top

#30 Yes I have lived in China full time since 2004 and yes I speak Chinese.

Foreigners in China come and go on about a 3 year cycle. They don't know what happened before so they think they're the first ones to get here. They don't realize that their insights aren't special due to the Dunning-Kreuger effect. They lack the ability to see how dumb they are. Marco Polo syndrome is real, ask any long-termer.

This particular Marco Polo has been here a year, doesn't speak Chinese, and his insights are based on the English speaking people he met at his job, which is usually English teacher. His lack of mastery of his own language is typical. A Master's degree should know where an apostrophe belongs. If I'm short with him it's because I've seen it all before and hopefully this will cause him to button down, learn the damn language, and stfu until he has something interesting to say, which won't happen for half a decade at least.

Posted by Harcourt Angoluting9366 2017-08-13 19:34|| 2017-08-13 19:34|| Front Page Top

#31 Not exactly a novel observation--

It'd be such an ignorant thing to do
If the Russians love their children too.
Sting - Russians

Posted by Iblis 2017-08-13 20:01|| 2017-08-13 20:01|| Front Page Top

#32 Foreigners in China come and go on about a 3 year cycle.

Expats in Europe are generally on the same cycle, Harcourt Angoluting9366, or were when we were out there in the 1990s. Six months to figure out the key necessities (that was precisely how long after we moved to Brussels from Frankfurt a.M. it took me to figure out what Belgians call cinnamon in French and Flemish, one of the many words not in my dictionaries), the rest of the first year to to figure out the rest and sort through acquaintances to find friends; the second year one finds better ways to do necessary things, adding more friends, fun and adventures, then in year three one repeats the best experiences, confident one has grasped the rhythms of the place before moving to a new country and starting over. During the second country period the true friends from the first country are revealed, and visits to them -- wherever they might now be -- are added to home country visits, untill after a series of tours dear friends will be scattered around the planet.

We actually stayed a fourth year in Germany before Mr. Wife's management pushed him hard enough to get us to join the consolidated work group in Brussels, a city he loathes thanks to its vile rush hour traffic. Our third assignment was Cincinnati, Ohio -- and then Mr. Wife moved to a very different part of the business instead of to another geography.

Posted by trailing wife 2017-08-13 22:16|| 2017-08-13 22:16|| Front Page Top

#33 Yes I have lived in China full time since 2004 and yes I speak Chinese.

So, have you 'gone native'?

Posted by Pappy 2017-08-13 22:32|| 2017-08-13 22:32|| Front Page Top

23:42 Zebulon Phomble3856
23:41 Seeking cure for ignorance
22:32 Pappy
22:21 trailing wife
22:16 trailing wife
21:46 Zenobia Floger6220
21:38 Zenobia Floger6220
21:26 Skidmark
21:25 Zenobia Floger6220
21:10 Glenmore
21:10 Zenobia Floger6220
20:24 trailing wife
20:11 DarthVader
20:10 DarthVader
20:01 Iblis
20:00 JohnQC
19:34 Harcourt Angoluting9366
19:32 Zenobia Floger6220
19:25 swksvolFF
19:11 Zenobia Floger6220
19:08 swksvolFF
18:56 swksvolFF
18:46 Anomalous Sources
18:41 Anomalous Sources