How Does China See the World? | Kaiser Kuo

If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed







Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas

Episode Recorded on 10/24/2022

[SLF-ow]

Good terminology, Kai’s Er! From affirmative action to affirmative vision! From world policeman bully on the block to a good neighbor and the good cowboy who treated the Indian as an equal with respect.

[SLF-ow]

Gillian Tett did her anthropology PhD research on weddings in Tajikistan which gives her cross-cultural perspectives on the financial world. There is more than one way to have weddings that are not in Christian churches with brides in white wedding dresses.

[SLF-ow]

International Forum on Globalization based in San Francisco founded by ex-advertising guru Jerry Mander produced an alternative analysis that undergirded the anti-WTO protests in The Battle in Seattle. Walden Bello added to this analysis of First World profits made with Third World labor in his book Dragons in Distress and his Global South Institute founded in Bangkok. Another analyst was Martin Khor based in Penang, Malaysia who founded Third World Network.

[SLF-ow]

It’s time to watch The Russians Are Coming! with Alan Arkin again.

[tonysu]

I disagree with a number of opinions in this discussion...
I'm always surprised at how many people are surprised at the ignorance of so many of our technical leaders in other technologies than they specialize and even in some cases the companies they lead. For one thing, I don't think that many if any of these technological leaders are social scientists or study social sciences so at times we see things like Musk's pothead remarks that can be discriminatory and impolitic if not even evil at times. Or that even the highly regarded Bill Gates can sometimes say something that is obviously outside his area of expertise like understanding how AI works today its probable limits and dangers. If our technological leaders can be so misinformed and lack expertise, it's nearly a lost cause for the non-technical folk to form any rational opinion about technologies like AI.

Another opinion I heard accuses the US of being self centered and ignorant of the perceptions of the rest of the world about the US. I'd suggest that parochialism is natural and present everywhere and not something special about the US. Every person, every society and every nation acts mostly in its self interest no matter they status and place in the world. Maybe it can be argued that because of the immensity and position of the US power in the world the US could have a special responsibility to exercise special empathy towards others but it's obviously a special ask and expectation that somehow Americans should be "better" than everyone else.

This video discussion makes no difference between American hegemony and empire. I argue there is a big difference... Empires are ruled by a ruler and typically by an autocratic monarch and subject nations are colonies of the empire. The current World Order is based on international law that all countries regardless of size, status or military power can participate. The US does not rule other countries and every country but few are entirely free to join or reject but are still expected to behave non-belligerently and preserve the status quo. Most violations by countries that get them excluded from the world community and even at times become sanctioned are belligerent actions that don't comply with international law. The US is obviously the strongest power in the world but the US does not make the world subjects under American rule and everyone who is not American has considerable freedom to choose their own path in life.

Regarding a willingness to go to war, if the reasons are deep and important enough and particularly if you have the means to win that war, there is am imperative to go to war if necessary to defend those values. Not doing so means risking loss of those values and the domino effect it has to increasing the cost of an eventual war if the adversary is persistent in dismantling everything you hold dear. When Xi publicly pronounces that his personal ambition as China's leader is to "confront and overcome" the US military so as to crush the World Order based on international law, he has already declared war on the United States and so then the US government has to decide what was said is mere rhetoric or a promise to destroy the American way of life and that of its allies. If it's a promise then the US needs tio take such words seriously and act accordingly. That doesn't necessarily mean that the US should fire any bullets at China but it does mean that steps should begin immediately to discourage any attempts at open hostilities.

[jimjackson]

We essentially took over, through conflict, the Philippines, Korea, Germany, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Mexico, and many other smaller nations, and we gave them autonomy. We gave them back. What's bad about that?