The propaganda is also very strong on Chinese social media (especially Wechat). I leave in France and I know a few Chinese person that keep telling me that this war was mainly caused by USA, that the Ukraine president is a dictator and so on...
Oh, the irony! As an Indian, reading nytimes and bbc articles about India was a real eye opener on how much propaganda is passed off as 'opinion' and 'news' in the western press.
I mean, the confidence and elan with which a narrative is pushed by blatantly hiding contrarian views and even facts is fascinating to observe, especially when you're on the ground looking at stuff firsthand.
You always need to take anything in 'opinion', 'editorial' or 'analysis' sections with a grain of salt.
That being said, bias does not automatically imply propaganda. Naturally someone raised in the UK/US is going to have a Western interpretation of actions and bias, but in most cases these are beliefs genuinely held. I'm sure as a British person I could find many areas where I disagree with you, and our particular views are coloured by cultural biases - but that does not make them propaganda IMO. Tech articles often contain ridiculous statements around encryption and the dark web, but it's most likely lack of understanding than propaganda.
I would say propaganda requires intent - usually to achieve a political aim at the behest of the government. Genuine propaganda is hard to conclusively find within the BBC - though I personally suspect some of the covid reporting contained a type of voluntary propaganda.
> I would say propaganda requires intent - usually to achieve a political aim at the behest of the government.
This is most certainly present, and is glaringly obvious when you're seeing events unfold firsthand and look at the reportage in western media very deliberately leave out happenings that don't tie in with the narrative being peddled. It definitely isn't just bias. It's wilful propaganda, with malicious intent.
Having known journalists, I think it's better to apply Hanlon's razor. Most articles are likely to be being written from some office in London by people who have no direct experience with the issue in question, and the primary metrics they'll be optimising for will be page views.
For example, a writer for the Express won't write an article about how the British Empire screwed India because it will annoy the readership. It's not propaganda, it's people who don't know what they're talking about desperately fighting over shrinking advertising revenue.
Ypu know why west is different from Russia or China? Russian embassy in Italy retweeted an italian newspaper editorial from 'Il Fatto Quotidiano' backing russian story.
In Italy you can say almost anything. Is it the same in Russia (15 years of prison for "false news" law) or China (HK is no more "two system, one country" despite 1997 international agreement)?
This happened recently with the Canadian trucker convoy. So many videos showing people just being peaceful, they stopped honking when a bad law was passed to prohibit it- and they were labeled extreme terrorists who had donations/bank accounts frozen and confiscated.
In a way I'm glad this has all happened to show the few who remain faithful in media that it's all bullshit pushing some narrative.
This is all so blatant now that it's almost impossible to defend rationally.
I've seen the same in Indian news in reference to the USA. All country's news are slanted towards their populous. However in countries like China and Russia they print straight up lies.
I am amused that one who know neither Chinese and Russian languages confidently claim that their media are lying, based on the reporting that one knows as biased.
Let's put in this way.
One saw a black box.
One was told that the black box contains some nasty staff.
One knows that the above statement is biased.
One then claim that the black box contains the nasty thing.
See how bias anchored one's thought, even if clearly this guy had no first hand information to make any judgement at all. Yet still be able to have a mental state that clearly established.
You know that Russian and Chinese media have English versions, and Google Translate and similar can be used to translate the original versions? The absolutely publish complete bullshit.
while i was replying to you, i meant “you” in general. his point is a valid one: that most people simply take the information that’s presented to them, and, despite knowing what the source of that information is, choose to believe it at face-value. whether this news is from state-controlled media or the new york times or wherever, people ignore the known fact that their news source is likely biased in some way and, without bothering to do any research themselves, let that news shape their opinions.
I mean, calling Zelenskyj a nazi dictator is quite stupid. He was elected in 2019, won elections against the previous Ukrainian 'dictator' (who was also put in the seat by the CIA if you believe the dictator narrative).
I thought the reporting on the near-nuclear incident gave a good contrast, as I first read it in the Telegraph[tele], then checked it in the Guardian[graun], had a look at Reuters (not sure what the link was), then looked at Russia Today[RT]. The main difference I found was that the western media was more alarmist and buried the lede[1] that the fire wasn't actually going to lead to a nuclear accident. Russia Today's reporting was much calmer and put things like that nearer the top (going by my recollection).
For example, the Guardian's headline:
> World ‘narrowly averted a nuclear catastrophe’, says US envoy to UN after Russia attack on Ukraine atomic plant - as it happened
Whereas Russia Today's headline and first line are:
> Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘shelling’ nuclear plant
> A fire broke out on Friday morning in a training building adjacent to the six-reactor Zaporozhskaya Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which local Ukrainian authorities have blamed on shelling by Russian troops.
The Telegraph has this quote a way down the page[2]:
> "For the moment, we know that all these dangers (that there had been concern about) haven't materialised but that the fire was contained to an administration building."
I was genuinely shocked and worried when I read the Telegraph, until I saw the bit about the building, and then I see that RT is making that the important part of their reporting.
I'm not picking a side here, nor trying to dismiss genuine worries (I still think the fire was too close for comfort), however, I think it's interesting to see the ways the same events are reported on, and it's something I think should be allowed, at the very least to counter accusations of censorship in aid of propaganda.
[1] that phrase implies intention, I can't confirm that, of course.
[2] I know it's a "live blog" page but that wouldn't stop them putting the info in the summary at the top, nor dialling down the scary language.
Belief From a country or countries where people are not free to inform themselves or to speech openly about opinions , that's where propaganda have are easily spread..
Well, to be fair if you remove restrictions then it is the Western version of events that will rules as they have the established platforms and money to spread info.
To see their power look at the French poll of who won them the World War. It became 20% in the recent decades from 57% for Russia
The idea that the Soviet Union won WWII is itself propaganda and ignores the contributions of many, many nations, not to mention the entire Pacific war. Also, the liberation of France was exclusively the western allies.
For the most part I agree but the Soviets were integral. Without the Eastern front taking up so much of the enemy resources, the Western front would have been very different.
After they were forced to switch sides. Before, they did their own share of conquest and genocide in eastern Europe [1,2,..], and the Allies generously let them keep those countries after the war. But all is forgiven and forgotten if one ends up on the Right Side of History.
This really egregiously rewrites the history in which the nascent USSR was rebuked by every single European nation it tried to enter into a defense treaty with against Germany. I'm not going to spoon-feed, but here's a source from mainstream Western media: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/322...
If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i? I don't know where you're getting "forgiven and forgotten" from given that you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand. The Holodomor, Katyn massacre, Molotov-Ribbentrop pact are all common offenders here.
And it was the collapse of the USSR + subsequent privatization of state enterprises at bargain bin prices that created the oligarchs that today are Putin's power base. The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"
> USSR was rebuked by every single European nation it tried to enter into a defense treaty with against Germany
That does not imply eastern European states joined the Soviet union willingly.
> If you want to categorize what the USSR did in that period as conquest and genocide would you say the same about the US annexing Hawai'i?
Unless Hawai'i joined willingly, it is by definition conquest, yes. I'm not aware of any subsequent nationality or ethnicity based mass killings, but if they took place, that is, again, genocide by definition.
> you can't talk about the USSR without someone bringing up historical events they don't understand.
You are correct, I don't fully understand that part of history. Could you explain how using military force to expand the Soviet empire wasn't conquest, or how the Holodomor wasn't genocide?
> The US & UK also intervened to put Putin into power in 1999, continuing a long-standing tradition of destabilizing regions and not really caring until the consequences spill over into a country like Ukraine that "looks like us" and live in "a civilized country with McDonalds"
You disprove your point in the same sentence that you make it. Russians look very similar to Ukrainians, and they've had McDonald's since 1990, while Ukraine got its first in 1997, and has less than half as many McDonald's per capita as Russia:
7/10 Nazi deaths were on the eastern front. Nobody said the USSR won the war itself, but they absolutely did contribute the most to the war effort. They were invaded by the largest land army in history and lost entire swathes of the country before eventually pushing the invaders out and liberating Majdanek and Auschwitz. US could have had a similar impact but we only got involved after Pearl Harbor. By then the writing was already on the wall for the Third Reich.
I suggest asking some professional historians this question and you will be surprised at the answer. Only Americans believe that the the USA was the primary nation responsible for victory in WW2.
And belief that access to information freely somehow makes one better informed is how propaganda is most _potently_ spread. At least people who grow up in repressive medium regimes know they're fed propaganda. There are comparable amount of low-info useful idiots everywhere, but very few countries are so unfree that access to global opinions isn't a VPN away. Though the ignorant from "free" societies are most insistent they're free from indoctorination, for merely having access to perspectives that they don't actually read nor have capability to interpret i.e. the amount of diaspora in western countries and western NGOs abroad means flow of propaganda is strong unidirectional while west is largely dismissive of what everyone else thinks.
Dismissing different opinions about politics based on random claims about "freedom" (this word is the trademark of western propaganda) is one of the strongest forms of propaganda. By the way, other people opinions on US actions in their countries is more relevant than US citisen opinion on the same matter, becaue guess what? That US citisen is only hearing the US Gov pov and "facts".
US did not ban RT. Independent companies chose to drop it, EU chose to ban it, but one can still access that cesspool of their website. But US did not ban anything.
Isn't propaganda the perfect tool to create deeply held beliefs? I would even go as far as to say that propaganda is the only way to have deeply held beliefs. But maybe my definition of propaganda is too broad.
No. It comes from history and lived experience. I have met countless Serbs who lived in the west for decades, all being deeply bitter and cynical about the breakup of Yugoslavia and the role the US played in it.
>that the Ukraine president is a dictator and so on...
A year ago Zelensky closed all opposition TV channels on the pretext they were pro-Russian. [0] Not one or two. All of them. Since then there is no opposition TV in Ukraine.
It is overly simplification. I think the sentiment in China is really not about supporting Russia; it is about anti-US.
Because quite a lot of people in China think US is organizing an Eastern NATO, to "destabilize" the whole region. For example, the nuclear-powered marine deal with Australia, etc. Biden’s first year was much harsher on China than Russia.
In 1999, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy, killing 3, that certainly did not help.
Eastern NATO? Sounds like something many smaller countries in the region would love to join, to secure each other against a large expansionistic neighboring country.
> I think the sentiment in China is really not about supporting Russia; it is about anti-US.
Anti-US is a part of it, but from what I know, Chinese people do generally like Russia a lot more than most of the world. I think it’s kind of a culture and history thing, education is likely a big part. Chinese tend to favour Russia by default for many things, even if the US isn’t involved. The US involvement (perceived or not) definitely still contributes a lot to the general sentiment in this particular case, of course.
> Because quite a lot of people in China think US is organizing an Eastern NATO, to "destabilize" the whole region.
We had one of those, it was called SEATO. There's been only negative progress since on that front.
> For example, the nuclear-powered marine deal with Australia
AUKUS involved countries already in NATO-like agreements with the US (UK is in NATO, Australia in ANZUS) so it doesn't really change much in terms of security alignment.
> AUKUS involved countries already in NATO-like agreements with the US (UK is in NATO, Australia in ANZUS) so it doesn't really change much in terms of security alignment.
It does, because it pissed off France ( which also has territory in the Pacific) for no good reason, and also stated that the choice of nuclear subs is due to the Chinese threat. And also it pushed the delivery date of new Australian submarines by at least a decade, probably more.
There were a lot of good reasons to be against the TPP; particularly in regards to IP. The EFF who has been a consistent and well guided voice on this issue was firmly against it[1].
I’m ashamed of my country and people… only if they were well informed and had unlimited access to internet would they start realizing they have been brainwashed by their own goevernment….
I have the same misgivings in reaction to your comment as the siblings comments mention about gatekeeping... but at the same time, I agree with you. And I'm one of the people you mention.
Speaking solely for myself, your description of me, someone seeking smarter people than myself and mostly chiming in on political/business things, it is insightful and spot on. I don't contribute much, if any, to highly technical discussions, nor do I demonstrate my own expertise. I do have it (technical expertise), but I rarely see relevant times to bring it up, and when I do see those times it's usually better to stay silent or somebody else has already said what I wanted to better than I could.
So I contribute more (not much; I resisted creating an account for many years, and now try to limit myself) to the generalized topics we can all share interest in. If stories on those topics weren't there, I wouldn't say anything. In fact, I could get those exact same stories elsewhere with accompanying forum. The only reason I prefer it here is because of the smarter people.
Will that make HN more like reddit or <insert normie platform>? Yeah, probably, and maybe that's not great.
In other words I'm near the epitome of the strawman you created, and I agree with you. I'll consider if my own participation can be modified to alleviate our shared concerns.
Glad you were open to seeing what I'm talking about, and why it concerns me. I also feel I have been guilty of it, and have hesitated to comment in technical conversations as often for the same reasons as you.
I've been trying to correct that in myself as well, seeking out more technical conversations where my statements can be clearly evaluated to be true or false based on technical merits, and thus valuable to anyone reading it.
Unfortunately, a part of nurturing a certain type of community, is to make it slightly unapproachable to those you don't want in it. I think the very plain css of the site already does a great job of that, but I wonder if it's still not enough to curate the community long term.
While the poster you are responding to seems to be a mythical creature, this is very strange gatekeeping. Hacker news has never been a purely technical forum, given the business, marketing etc side of startup culture. This intermixes with legislation, geopolitics and many other topics. All these have a legitimate place here.
To dismiss views of people with no strong tech background as not able to "filter their thoughts" or that they come here to "talk to smarter people" is rather ridiculous. You will find lawyers, linguists, public servants, medical professionals, tax advisors, HR people, ... here. Why would their analysis be less valid than yours just because you happen to have a CS or engineering degree? Who is the most rational and "smart" for you? Applied mathematics? Logicians? Philosophers specialized in philosophy of science?
Assuming other people are less smart than oneself and that one's own expertise implies superior knowledge/analysis in unrelated fields is by the way a key sign of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
> demonstrating expertise in a field where being wrong is easy to prove. I find expertise in a highly technical field trains one to filter their thoughts for demonstrable accuracy.
Your litany of past posts with a tone of incredulity at the people you reply to, as well as being a good example of having few posts on topics of technical complexity, make me not interested in engaging with you further, as it seems more like it struck a personal chord with you and that you're not discussing the merits of this observation in good faith.
> Many of the ads, which are mostly clips of CGTN newscasts, sprinkle in pro-Russia, anti-NATO talking points and downplay Russia's actions in launching an unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
The existence of biolabs is completely genuine. You can read more (from a .gov site) here [1]. They seem to have removed the fact-sheets from the site, but you can still access them on archive.org, like here [2]. The fact sheets don't have anything especially seedy on them but do confirm that the labs were funded by the US Department of Defense, and do work with pathogens.
Point being you don't need the quotes. There are definitely DoD built biolabs, and a surprisingly large amount of them.
> They seem to point to medical research to fight against diseases, rather than “biomilitary activities”.
They are dual use research. Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons. Research for rockets is the same for icbms. It's why we are so keen on preventing iran from developing their nuclear energy program. It's why we are worried about north korea's "space" program. The same thing with cybersecurity. By learning to prevent cyberattacks, you are also learning how to carry out cyberattacks. And vice versa. You can't research against diseases/viruses/etc without procuring, creating and developing them.
Researching viruses in general is not a dual-use activity. Most viruses spread everywhere when they get out. Pathogens like anthrax can't spread from human to human, making them plausible weapons and proportionally decreasing the urgency of researching them. (The labs may have been researching anthrax but the odds are fair that none of their research involved anything that could be a weapon.)
Anthrax is a disease caused by a bacterium, not a virus.
Production of Bacillus anthracis spores for weapons use in the Soviet Union was in progress when an accident resulted in a release of spores that killed at least 66 people:
No, no bioweapon is a virus. You have toxin based or bacteria based bioweapons, but not any virus bioweapon yet. It's a bad idea, and an extremely difficult and costly operation to engineer a virus.
No, the point is that viral research is inherently dual-use regardless of intent: "You can't research against diseases/viruses/etc without procuring, creating and developing them."
I'm not even sure that's true. Knowing anything about viruses means you're better placed to try and use them as a weapon versus someone who does no research on them.
You can try and find specific counter examples, but I think the idea that most virus research, and scientific research in general, could likely be repurposed for bad or good, is probably pretty accurate in general.
Policing "bad" science while allowing "good" science is probably an impossible task.
>Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons.
This is not entirely accurate. It's possible to run nuclear reactors without the capability for nuclear weapons - which, up until the collapse of Iran's deal with Western powers, was exactly what they were (meant to be) doing. You have to deliberately enrich uranium well past the point where it's useful for reactors before you start getting into weapon-making territory.
Nobody would characterise a nuclear energy plant in a Western country as a "nuclear weapons research facility", not least because the uranium involved is nowhere near weapons-grade.
> Nobody would characterise a nuclear energy plant in a Western country as a "nuclear weapons research facility"
By nobody you mean everybody, especially everybody outside of the west? It's funny how blinded we are by our false sense of moral superiority.
> not least because the uranium involved is nowhere near weapons-grade.
Last I checked, doesn't take that much technical effort or time going from "civilian" to militar/weapons grade. There are an entire class of nations classified as nuclear latent powers - about 20 or so nations who could piggy back off their "civilian" nuclear industry to nuclears weapons in weeks/months. Surprisingly, the list is made up primarily of western nations ( which nobody would characterize as having nuclear weapons research facilities ) and japan/south korea/etc.
Nuclear is a bad example because of enrichement differences.
Any BSL4 lab can have multiple uses depending on the mission of the employees. They can easily be used as bioweapon labs, I haven't seen any good pushback on this idea.
I agree that you can run nuclear reactors without the capability for nuclear weapons. However, investment in nuclear reactors and in nuclear research reduces the cost of nuclear weapons, so they are indeed dual-use.
Of course, no one characterizes nuclear energy plants in Western countries as nuclear weapons research facilities, but it's perfectly reasonable to say they are dual-use. This isn't limited to nuclear energy, the term is also applicable to various things such as civilian aviation, image recognition technology, advanced metallurgy, camera technology etc...
So I don't think you really disagree with who you're replying to. Yes, the facilities aren't exactly what you need, but they're a big step towards that, and generally research in the domain has a fair degree of applicability.
> Just like research for nuclear energy is the same as research for nuclear weapons.
This is absurdly untrue.
This is an error to the level of claiming that programming language research is the same as video game manual writing, and then trying to justify it as "but they both involve computers"
> The U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program collaborates with partner countries to counter the threat of outbreaks (deliberate, accidental, or natural) of the world’s most dangerous infectious diseases. The program accomplishes its bio-threat reduction mission through development of a bio-risk management culture; international research partnerships; and partner capacity for enhanced bio-security, bio-safety, and bio-surveillance measures. The Biological Threat Reduction Program’s priorities in Ukraine are to consolidate and secure pathogens and toxins of security concern and to continue to ensure Ukraine can detect and report outbreaks caused by dangerous pathogens before they pose security or stability threats
Threat Reduction Program? Wow, that sounds familiar.
"Of the $41.91 million, $37.61 million was awarded to EcoHealth Alliance by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which describes its mission as “to protect the United States and its allies by enabling the DoD and international partners to detect, deter, and defeat WMD and threat networks.”"
The National Security Council's Pandemic Response Team, which would have integrated and coordinated warnings from such offices in the early days of the Coronavirus spread, was eviscerated in 2018. They tried to raise the alarm anyway, but were ignored: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic...
Given the phrase “deliberate, accidental, or natural”, basically anywhere.
The two hypotheses about the origins of COVID are natural (wet market) and accidental (lab leak). Back when “The War On Terror” was the political Zeitgeist-meme, there was at least one anthrax attack (deliberate), and I remember suggestions that terrorists might also try to trigger foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks or algal blooms (it may not surprise you to learn that the latter was suggested by someone looking for government funding for their existing research into algal blooms).
Everywhere else? The environment, geopolitical opponents.
Bioweapons defense is pretty fuzzy, as until recently you generally had to study a strain for a long amount of time to develop and test an effective vaccine. Which means you have to have a representative strain. Which means you either need to get one... or create your best guess.
All while the environment and/or your adversary are doing god knows what out of your sight.
Miracles like a vaccine-in-a-year don't just happen. They build on decades of research and preparedness.
Research on infectious disease & co. is a big part of military research because servicemen operate all across the world, including areas where they are exposed to diseases that are uncommon in the US, or that have been eradicated. That is, of course, on top of all the diseases that fall under "chemical warfare" and for which you have to be able to treat your people (both military and civilian), and afflictions associated with crowded areas in general (besieged cities and the like).
I obviously don't know what the labs mentioned by the parent poster were doing but the fact that the US DoD (or any country's department of defense) does medical research should be about as surprising as the fact that they do research on explosives.
The DoD funds a lot of medical research to improve combat readiness. When I was an academic researcher, we were working on a project that was partially DoD funded to develop a diagnostic device which was meant for personalizing medication for patients undergoing cardiac procedures, but the military was interested in using it for developing personalized versions of QuikClot for soldiers who experienced battlefield trauma.
I also worked for a company which had several novel therapeutics for agents commonly used in bioweapons in their pipeline and the DoD was funding parts of that as well.
It's also worth noting that science funding in the US government is decentralized. Each branch of the military as well as a half dozen "civilian" departments each have their own separate programs for funding basic science research. If I recall correctly, when I was an undergraduate research assistant working for a cognitive psychologist studying how humans solve the traveling salesman problem, that research was funded by the US Navy.
So the DOD funding research could mean it thought the research could mean it had potential as a weapon, or a defense against weapons, or was just a random thing being funded to promote basic science research.
You can't really draw a line from "This was funded by this department, so it had this intent" in US science funding.
To defend against biological weapons. The DoD is responsible for defending the US against all kinds of attacks -- conventional, nuclear, chemical, and biological -- even if it doesn't use all of those weapon types itself.
> even if it doesn't use all of those weapon types itself.
US has changed to a limited interpretation of what a biological weapon is, and considers non-deadly biological agents to not be bioweapons when it comes to treaties banning them.
That makes sense. The only bioweapon we were routinely trained on is tear gas, so if they're building stuff on level with tear gas I wouldn't be surprised. The other type of bioweapon that your second link mentioned is microbes that eat through structural material. This looks like it's purposed for breaching, which makes sense given how dangerous breaching is today.
The US DoD funds a lot of peaceful science at labs around the world. This is often misinterpreted by laymen as "weapons labs" when they are just normal civilian labs. Not all research funded by the military is directly applicable to weapons. A lot of times its applicable to defense against said weapons. Which also has application in the civilian medical field.
As evidenced by covid 19, pandemics are a matter of national security. I like to think that the DoD is interested in developing novel ways to fight novel pathogens, rather than use them as weapons. That said, I am under no illusion that the DoD or any government institution should be simply taken at their word either.
The other comments already answer this question. But I'd like to add just how massive the DoD is. It's not like how one might imagine a typical military, where the government is basically funding an entity to pay soldiers' salaries, pay for their equipment, and basic necessities and not much else. The DoD on a macro level doesn't really skimp on anything, from research on how climate change will affect its mission to dealing with overwhelming quantities of rust.
Plus historically, there are plenty of wars where disease was more deadly than enemy combatants.
mRNA vaccine technology was funded out of a DARPA program (from memory, ADEPTS?) to rapidly develop and deploy vaccines to novel pathogens. Circa 2015 or earlier?
At the time, pandemic influenza was the best guess, but the point of the platform and the program was to rapidly address any pathogen.
Crucial question: does the DoD fund equivalent labs in other countries too, or is Ukraine an outlier?
If such activity is just business as usual for the DoD in every country, then it certainly weakens the case for anything nefarious happening specifically in relation to Ukraine.
It's not really a crucial question - the use or not in other countries doesn't change how stupid an idea it is. But, to answer you, it's mostly in former eastern block countries. It seems to be mostly funding (and technical assistance) for the Ukrainians to build their internal version of the CDC, although it seems to also act as monies to secure any leftover Soviet bioweapons.
Military veterans here would know that NBC (the DoD’s umbrella acronym for Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) threats and defensive postures against them are constantly ingrained into the individual soldier’s training regimen. It starts from boot camp. Every recruit becomes familiar with the lovely pepper spray gas chamber encounter. NBC is taken very seriously in the training doctrine. It probably stems from the horrible use of chlorine gas during WW1. Russia has a few NBC favorites that they’ve used—sarin gas, novichok, litvinenko tea to name a few.
>Nuclear, Biological, Chemical threats and defensive postures
The Department of Defense is a misleading name since it spent a large % of its historical budget on offense and invasion. The use of the words 'defensive and defense' are always misleading in the US context and should not be taken literally in my opinion. US history makes this clear.
So why would they mention a "biolab" in Ukraine unless to imply that it somehow poses a threat to Russia? Or did they also mention that there are post offices in Ukraine?
This exact same website that is posted by OP (Axios) reported:
Ukraine warns Chernobyl nuclear plant is without power [1]
Now, most experts say there is nothing to worry about. Why did they report this unless to imply that it somehow poses a threat to the world? Or did they also mention that there are post offices in Ukraine without power?
This "implication" of what the fake news propaganda articles are trying to say, is that there is some WMD superweapon being developered by Ukraine to genetically target Russians. Like that disease in the new James Bond movie.
That is the part that is clearly the fake propaganda. The US and Ukraine are not working together to design a disease meant to genetically target Russians, like from the movie James Bond.
Ignoring the James Bond qualifier makes this scenario completely plausable. It is not clear that the US would not weaponize bioagents as one of the leading bioweapon manufacturers in human history.
> Ignoring the James Bond qualifier makes this scenario completely plausable
No its not. It is not plausible at all. Just think about this for a second.
People in eastern europe are genetically similar to russians. Why would they make a super weapon, to kill off people with slavic DNA, when such a super weapon would target much of its own population as well?
The conspiracy doesn't make any sense even if you assume supervillian levels of evilness.
I don't keep track of every place that is spreading each specific conspiracy theory. But the point of this example, is to just give a one-off example describing this conspiracy in general.
You included a conspiracy theory that no one in this thread brought up for what purpose?
I can only see it as an attempt to deflect, undermine, distract from the core points of this exchange, which makes it a bad faith approach on your part, in my opinion.
The thread is about conspiracies being peddled by the russian government, state media, and other bad actors. And yes there absolutely are conspiracies, related to this idea of bio-superweapons that are being peddled by bad actors.
Instead, it is other people attempting to deflect from the very real issue of conspiracies being peddled by these bad actors.
So yes, the original point about all of this, is about fake propaganda being spread. And yes that is an issue, as demonstrated by the example that I gave.
You and others just have to admit that yes fake propaganda, being spread by bad actors, is a real issue, which is the core point.
The idea that these bad actors are speading a bunch of mis-info, and half truths, to justify an invasion should be pretty obvious, IMO.
>And here’s CGTN’s article on “biolabs” in Ukraine, citing Russia media outlets and official
There are biolabs in the Ukraine, as confirmed by Nuland in the Senate hearings. Whether they have bio-weapons or medical research, who knows, but you can perhaps understand that the Russians might be concerned?
What's really amazing about this story that only days ago it was painted as a Q-anon theory. Turns out it was real. We are neck deep in propaganda from all directions, but most people think it's only coming from the Russian side.
There's a reason "dual purpose" exists as a term. Most American grade schools have "hacking devices", should we define that to be any computer.
And at this point, the Russians have demostrated a clear willingness to lie about anything in pursuit of their geopolitical agenda (see: months of explicit denial of preparing for a Ukrainian invasion, by all levels of their government, in official statements).
Russia is concerned that the US stepped in to make sure the post soviet labs didn't fall into the hands of terrorist or that ukraine continued weapons research?
Yes, but during that same hearing when Victoria Nuland was asked about biological weapons facilities, she explicitly confirmed to Sen. Rubio that she is 100% confident that _if there is to be a biological weapon or incident inside the Ukraine, it will definitely be the Russians who are behind it_.
That's GlobalTimes. I know they are both state media, but we are talking CGTN here.
> citing Russia media outlets and officials
I bet I can find them quoting US or Ukrainian media outlets and officials too. Should media not report what countries fighting a war claim? It's not like Western media consistently gets it right (e.g. deaths on snake island) by reporting only the pro-Ukrainian side.
> They peddle Russia’s claim that US has bioweapons
Why link to Newsweek instead of the actual CGTN post? I am less interested what Western media claims CGTN says than proof of what they actually say.
> It's not like Western media consistently gets it right (e.g. deaths on snake island) by reporting only the pro-Ukrainian side.
You're acting like an anti-Ukrainian position exists, to be discussed.
What position other than pro-victim would you like to see reported on, please?
It seems like you're very new here, and the only thing you've discussed is the Russia situation, or trying to make it look like it's reasonable to listen to state media to learn what's happening, by contrasting state propaganda to a disgraced magazine that was sold for a dollar to the daily beast ten years ago, then to religious extremists
Russia has invaded another country without provocation, and is shelling civilians, children's schools, hospitals, and grocery lines.
What pro-Russian spin would you like to see, specifically, please, new anonymous account? Thanks.
----
An aside: I am of the opinion that if websites like Facebook and Twitter don't get their fake account problem under control, laws will be coming to do it for them, and if those laws are written by politicians, it's going to go really badly for UGC websites
If you read the Newsweek article carefully, the bioweapon claim is from Igor Konashenkov.
CGTN only calls it “military biological program”. So technically not the same, but of course CGTN wants to give the same impression to keep spreading misinformation.
How so? If it leaked from a lab, it is almost certainly from the Wuhan lab. The Wuhan lab was a joint French-Chinese operation. Before COVID-19, EcoHealth (an organization with ties to the Wuhan lab) applied for a grant from DARPA to perform gain-of-function-esque research on COVID[1]. DARPA denied the application.
Other scientists contacted by The Intercept noted that there is published evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was already engaged in some of the genetic engineering work described in the proposal and that viruses designed in North Carolina could easily be used in China. “The mail is filled with little envelopes with plasmid dried on to filter paper that scientists routinely send each other,” said Jack Nunberg, director of the Montana Biotechnology Center at the University of Montana.
Even if we could blame American incompetence for the 1m death Americans, they can't be blamed for the pandemic as a whole. That does not make sense. The virus started spreading from China to dozens of countries before it even became a pandemic in the US.
Some analyst will someday pull together a fault tree weighted by deaths and economic harm, and America’s share will (based on current trends) certainly weigh heavier than most.
Way to skirt around the fact that nothing points to it having come from America or being due to it. Even if incompetence allowed it to spread it was already global when it reached the US.
Some analyst will someday pull together a fault tree weighted by deaths and economic harm, and America’s share will (based on current trends) certainly weigh heavier than most.
No laughable as in anyone who reads your comments sees that you’re outright lying. You quoted a paragraph about wuhan lab leaks as proof America was somehow responsible for covid. This stuff works on Facebook or Reddit where no one actually reads linked sources or quotes, it doesn’t work here.
Edit: "The US has an interest in biolabs in Ukraine" - I feel like this is a pretty useless nit to pick.
(Sorry for the twitter source. It's a video of Marco Rubio, a US senator, talking to Victoria Nuland)
The US is basically warning that Russia plans to release stuff from these labs and blame the Ukrainians for it. Kindof the same thing they were supposedly doing with Chernobyl. If that's Russian propaganda, then the propaganda has gotten to pretty senior levels of the state department.
edit: look I'm definitely not some Chinese misinfo spreader. I think that weaponization of social media, weaponization of the news, and weaponization of human emotion is basically the next version of nuclear weapons. That is: a new type of weapon that will (and is) completely change(ing) the war landscape. I think that sort of weapon is in use now, and the use will only increase. You've already seen Russia ban facebook for their citizens, China has their great firewall, and strict control over their citizens social media. It's here.
But I think the people who are trying to reach for these claims about bioweapons labs, or "bio labs" or perhaps no labs at all, are the ones spreading misinformation. That ambiguity and division that you are creating by spreading these lies is the problem. This desire to attack people's ability to interpret simple statements, and read the plain meaning of those simple statements is an attack on people's ability to resist this propaganda.
Is the US concerned that the materials in these labs could fall into the hands of the Russians? Also yes.
These are facts. Acknowledging these facts does not make you a Q anon conspiracy theorist, a Trump supporter, or anything else. These things are just nakedly true.
Now once you've acknowledged these things as simply true, you can get to the question of "is this a problem?" - To be clear, in my opinion: no these things are not necessarily a problem. Yes the US runs bio weapons labs in Ukraine. We do it for reasons that people have indicated in some of their comments. These are defensive in nature.
There's a question about if human beings generally should be studying this, but that is independent to the question about the US running biolabs (studying weapons...so...bioweapons labs) in Ukraine. You HAVE to acknowledge these truths. It should be obvious that having a good ability to separate truth from fiction is the way to defend against the type of propaganda that I outlined above. Twisting yourselves into knots to not accidentally acknowledge some information which is blatantly true, is how the propaganda is allowed to spread. It is an attack on your sense making ability. Please stop doing this.
The U.S. also has biolabs in China, or funds them, or has enough involvement that it's equivalent to what they're doing in Ukraine so maybe Russia should invade China next using their own biolab justification.
She says that she's concerned that Russia soldiers will take control of the materials in these labs and release it into Ukraine as a false flag, and that the US is working with them to secure these places.
It seems like we're getting into some really weird definitions of weapons if that doesn't count as a "weapon".
Biological material, especially if it is disease related, can be easily misused. This sounds like the effort the USA had 20+ years ago in helping Ukraine in securing and eliminating their nuclear arsenal. Not because the USA was interested in more nuclear weapons, but because they didn’t want terrorist getting ahold of them.
You are linking some links that don't imply what you imply. Yes, there are biolabs, and yes, some of them are Army-affiliated because COVID happened in the army, and yes, UA Army works with DoD. But there is no connection whatsoever there with the "US-made bioweapons" or even "bioweapons" in general so basically you are just promoting conspiracy.
I did not make any statements about existence of bioweapons.
You said “There is nothing in the video saying the biolabs belong to the US, stop spreading conspiracy misinformation.”
I pointed out that there is in fact US DoD funded research in Ukrainian bio labs.
I have no idea if they are making bioweapons. I can’t prove that they are, you can’t prove that they aren’t. But I do know that Victoria Nuland stated in that twitter video that whatever they got in those labs can be used as bioweapons, so on that point I think it’s an argument of semantics.
Funded by the DoD under antiproliferation because these were former soviet bioweapons labs. Why do people keep leaving this out? Seems pretty important to me
Simply because I did not know why the DoD was funding them. So thank you for that.
Also any time the DoD (or any gov entity anywhere in the world) claims “we are doing this only for the seemingly good purpose A” there is generally a much bigger purpose B, C, and D that they don’t mention.
That post you linked is itself spreading misinformation. Notice how it retreats to the argumentative "motte" of bio labs - which are not a secret - while contextually purporting to support the claim that the US is developing bio weapons in Ukraine, which itself is misinformational support for the propaganda line used domestically in Russia, that the bioweapons the US is allegedly developing in Ukraine will be used to attack Russia.
I understand the urge to apply neutrality here but the fact is that the priors simply do not support a good faith interpretation of what we know is coming from the Russian state propaganda apparatus.
The Chinese ad didn't mention bioweapons, Newsweek did. Trying to discredit a real fact (the US has biolabs in ukraine) by attacking a strawman (they didn't have bioweapons there! It'sall fake news!) is what's Newsweek is trying to do. There is a motte and Bailey here but it's not coming from the russians in this case, as opposed to what you are saying.
They weren't in Ukraine. They were in the People's Republic of Donetsk or the People's Republic of Luhansk. They voted overwhelmingly to leave Ukraine in 2014 after the nationalists overthrew the government took over in Kiev.
Unless the vote was with neutral ( international) observers, which it wasn't, a vote under foreign military occupation is bullshit of the highest order.
>Good WSJ article on Russia vs. China. In a nutshell, China miscalculated the situation. They will likely look to limit their bet (on Russia) for fear of becoming Russia 2.0 to the West. [1]
The tweet is from Neil Cybart and WSJ. You may know him as one of the more accurate Apple analysts. And most people still to this day think either China miscalculated it, or China's official stance is somewhat unclear. ( Paul Graham )
And as usual, Benedict Evans has much better take on the situation. Mostly likely because of his major in History.
> And most people still to this day think either China miscalculated it, or China's official stance is somewhat unclear. ( Paul Graham )
I was actually surprised China didn’t vote against the UN Resolution by the Generally Assembly condemning Russia’s violation of the UN Charter by the use of force and violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Though China was 1 of 35 Countries to abstain on the vote, the fact that they didn’t vote against the UN Resolution with Russia and 5 other Countries speaks loudly and volumes about China’s political unwillingness to support Russia’s acts in contravention of the UN Charter.
Furthermore, China did not support Russia in a similar Resolution before the UN Security Council leaving Russia as the sole permanent member of the UN Security Council with veto power to vote against the Resolution.
If anything it looks like China’s lack of political will to expressly support Russia in the UN General Assembly and Security Council seems to have legitimately surprised Russia. However, it is very difficult to discern whether China miscalculated the response of the international community or they simply played Russia by riding both sides of the fence until push came to shove. My guess is the later as I’m sure Russia was cautiously optimistic about China’s support while simultaneously aware of the likelihood they could not count of China, and I would go so far as to say the odds are Russia even has military contingency plans in place in the instance China becomes opportunistic with respect to their own boarder disputes with Russia during the chaos.
China has several territorial disputes with other countries and several regions that want to break away. Russia’s blatant violation of another country’s sovereignty is completely against China’s foreign policy objectives. It’s not surprising at all that they abstained, and Russia was tripping (to use the diplomatic term) if they thought that China would support them.
> the fact that they didn’t vote against the UN Resolution with Russia
China has, very consistently for decades now, maintained that every nation's borders are Super Duper Sacred and Never Ever to be challenged. That every sovereign nation can do whatever it wants within its UN-recognized borders. This is for obvious reasons over Xinjiang and Taiwan and Tibet and etc.
Abstention was their only realistic option. And quite in character. China abstains a great deal at the Security Council, if you look at the record.
> China has, very consistently for decades now, maintained that every nation's borders are Super Duper Sacred and Never Ever to be challenged. That every sovereign nation can do whatever it wants within its UN-recognized borders
Well, Ukraine's borders are recognised by UN and CCP respecting others borders is simply not true. Just ask their neighbours.
The thing is, China's claimed borders include those areas. This is politics, not a mission for truth and ethical conduct. Their definitions are entirely self-serving and certainly differ from those of their enemies.
Didn't surprise me at all. China has generally been neutral in these things between the USA and Russia. They will trade with most people despite politics. I don't they care if it's a totalitarian state (Russia) or democratic state (USA-sorta) as long as there is business to be done.
>However, it is very difficult to discern whether China miscalculated the response of the international community or they simply played Russia by riding both sides of the fence until push came to shove.
These arent the only two choices, this binary approach is more reflective of your limited thinking than reality.
Abstaining from votes that can't be won speaks volumes. Why take a position when not taking one is just as effective?
There is a reason people don't always show their folded hands in poker.
> Abstaining from votes that can't be won speaks volumes.
The UN General Assembly Resolution condemning Russia overwhelmingly passed.
The UN Security Council Resolution on the other hand never had a chance of passing, but the international community still went forward with the vote they didn’t collectively “fold” knowing no matter what it wouldn’t pass.
In either case a member of the UN abstaining from a vote is not the same as folding in poker, it’s not about winning or losing as shown by the willingness to submit a Resolution for vote by the Security Council, because its about standing in the international community, where abstaining on a vote is itself a political statement not a “fold” that will hide their hand.
> I disagree and this is an assumption on your part, not a forgone conclusion.
You’ve had a bizarre tone replying to me from the beginning, and yet your post reveals you don’t even know how the UN Security Council works if you don’t agree that the Security Council vote wasn’t a forgone conclusion. Feel free to ask if you don’t know why it was impossible to pass.
> The tweet is from Neil Cybart and WSJ. You may know him as one of the more accurate Apple analysts.
I think it's a good idea not to look at Twitter OR Apple analysts to help understand the Ukraine situation. Twitter is a perfect place to get breaking news, hot takes, and memes. Apple analysts may be very intelligent people. But, I want to wait for longer, more meticulous writing by people on the ground, or people with a deep background in the domain, and a long time to think about it.
I am pointing out two example which HN readers will likely be familiar. Along with the WSJ article. As these people are shaping the narrative.
Trying to read China from what they do on the outside, such as diplomatic speeches and UN action, compared to what they do on the inside with their State / social media, supply chain and business support shows a completely different picture.
China has not only banned all pro Ukraine speeches on their Social media, showing support of Russia and claiming it is war started by US. If any of these have soften since the war started or toned down one might argue China could be changing stance. But they didn't. They double down on Russia. The Chinese are so furious to the point it has now become a positive ( or negative ) feedback loop within their own circle.
I am baffled as to why most in the west dont see it. Even when presented as it is.
As the WSJ article correctly points out, China immediately tried to caution the Russians in their invasion, China also never recognized the peoples republics of Luhansk and Donetzk, and didn't even accept Russia's annexation of Crimea. In the UN, China and others abstained instead of voting with Russia, and China on multiple occasions stressed the independence and importance of territorial integrity of Ukraine. It is still curious how vocal they were on sino-russian friendship in the lead up to the invasion, and how, according to US intelligence, China asked Russia to delay their invasion until after the Olympics.
A maybe reasonable guess would be that they, too, expected this war to be over before any large response from the West could be mustered. Then the whole thing would be out of the news-cycle relatively quickly, and while Russia would still be hit with harsh sanctions, China would have a) a russian economy even more dependent on them and b) a blueprint for what to expect in the case of war with Taiwan.
China's stance since the invasion isn't really unique though; India, Brazil, Vietnam and quite a few others also chose to abstain from the UN motion to condemn the invasion and call for an immediate ceasefire. - In fact, countries "representing" more than half the global population abstained. These countries also try to balance their response, while being pressured to show solidarity with Ukraine by their population internally.
Those cancerous Twitter login modals are not letting me read the whole thread but I don't agree that China has much to lose here.
They get a far weaker Russia much more dependent on them now economically. Russia is rich in fossil fuels which China lacks and has some advantages in defence and space tech which China can easily get their hands on.
CCP might not be that confident about taking Taiwan now but they get a massive economic boost and a possible big brother relationship with Russia now.
Yeah sorry I am still trying to get into the habit or replacing twitter with nitter. Or could HN have the option to automatically replace it with nitter would be even better.
China is ascendant on the international stage, with trade and diplomatic relations growing rapidly. Russia is near inconsequential compared to their existing economy, trade, and clout. China is at risk of becoming, as someone else put it, the leader of the gang of international misfits. Meanwhile the West is pulling rapidly together while neutral countries are skewing towards their way.
I can’t claim to be an expert, but it seems pretty clear to me that China’s action or inaction on Russia will have huge implications on their next decade and beyond.
> Russia is near inconsequential compared to their existing economy, trade, and clout.
Russia is inconsequential compared to their trade and economy but not clout.
But looking at the overall figures is just partial picture. China imported over 10M barrels of oil per day last year. [1] At current prices of Brent, i.e. an import bill of $1.4 billion per day or $500 billion per year. Imagine getting a discount on that.
Also, Russia still has tech advantages over China in some areas, the best fighter aircraft in PLA's force uses Russian made engines. They rely on Russia for their Air defense systems, the S400.
Sure but a far weaker Russia is what? The worlds 20th largest economy, with a history of having a geopolitical chip on its shoulder (I think most observers would agree that the Russian people would die before becoming ‘chinas little brother’) ?
> think most observers would agree that the Russian people would die before becoming ‘chinas little brother’
That is only if they would realise it, if the Russian propoganda works at home, China might be the only true friend they have in the tough times to come.
One thing to note is China has always been pretty obtuse / cautious / isolationist about foreign policy that doesn't absolutely directly involve them. In recent decades that has changed ... but their public approach sometimes seems cautious in some places ... conflicting / less cautious in others.
I don’t know why China is so keen on helping Russia. Is this some kind of godfather deal and they want some massive ROI from Russia once things settle down a bit? Or is this some long-term strategy “against the West”?
It's win-win for them, no? A weak Russia isolated from the west means cheap resources for China. And the West focusing on the conflict and spending resources in Europe draws attention away from China in Asia. Seems like it's their interest to keep both parties in a drawn out conflict.
Though perhaps they have to balance it with how it affects the world economy.
Taiwan is seeing a massive increase in morale and defense interest [1]. The West has unified in a way not seen since World War II. If Xi sides with the baddies, he risks the stink rubbing off on him.
I don't think China could do anything about the attack itself (besides pushing it back into the mud...). This way the Taiwan development isn't anything they could change. It will wear off though and doesn't really change anything about the whole situation.
In return they get to see what the West will do and what they'd do if China would to attack Taiwan. They get the cheap resources OP mentioned above, they get another country which depends on them and posting some Ads on Facebook won't hurt them. It's not like somebody would sanction them because of it.
Realistically seen, they'll be able to get away with much more and I'm sure they'll test that in the weeks to come.
I can't imagine "the West" sanctioning both a huge source for oil and gas AND a source for cheap manufactured goods and they know it too...
I don’t know how many times this has to be said, but the situations with Taiwan and Ukraine are in no way similar. The US has no formal alliance, or guarantees, with Ukraine. The US not rushing to defend them is not proof they won’t defend Taiwan (for one thing Taiwan is vital to the American military as a chip manufacturer.)
Taiwan is extremely important militarily for the US besides chip manufacturing. First the US has an early warning radar for detecting a (nuclear) ballistic missile attack installed in Tawain [1] and Taiwan is a key strategic part in the in a war against China [2].
Western feelings of unity are of no importance on this topic. Large majorities in both mainland China and Taiwan are happy with Taiwan's current status. Nothing that happens in Ukraine will convince significant numbers of Taiwanese to sign up for a proxy war.
No one is suggesting that they'll sign up for a proxy war out-of-the-blue. But the Russians are clearly surprised by the hostile resistance they've met from ordinary Ukrainians. I think they really thought that they would be welcomed or at least met with indifference.
Every time I've heard a militant Chinese unification advocate talk about Taiwanese unification, they scoff at the idea that the Taiwanese would actually resist a PLA invasion. Now that possibility can't be ignored.
"You may not be interested in war, but war is very interested in you."
Most people in both nations, including everyone who has a say in any decision, support the status quo. China isn't going to unilaterally invade Taiwan, and Taiwan isn't going to take steps to change that fact.
Recent events in Ukraine have made the Taiwanese less likely to tolerate the formation of foreign-affiliated groups like "Right Sector" or "Azov Battalion". There is also no area or population similar to Donbas where westernized Taiwanese could e.g. kill 14,000 people or burn down a trade union hall with lots of people inside.
Assuming that war is the natural state of humanity, which is only prevented by authoritarians in the employ of Raytheon, is a character flaw.
I think they will play the hand as dealt but I don't think the conflict is worth it to them overall. There has already been a record sell-off in Chinese government debt the past few weeks.
This is such a fragile time after 2 years of COVID for the global economy. Even the Belt and Road countries being dragged down with Russia can't be worth it to them.
Not to mention they have their own economic/banking issues that they were probably hoping for a strong global recovery to help out with.
Russia has nowhere else to go now that western markets are closed to them. China will be able to buy natural gas and oil nearly at cost because nobody else is willing to buy them, and gets to dictate the prices it's willing to pay. It also gets a large market for the products of its industry with close to zero competition.
At least that's the general feeling among Russian economists whom I've been reading lately.
Not so sure about that market part... its 160 million of mostly poor folks who are becoming massively more poor as we write here. That's not so lucrative market compared to ie Europe with 500+ million wealthier citizens. But yeah Chinese cheap stuff will not have much competition.
The point in the previous comment was, that there is little China can get from a trade with Russia other than natural resources. Russia is quickly running out of foreign money.
While the West cannot "cut off" China as too much manufacturing has moved there, supporting Russia in this already has an impact on the reception of Chinese brands in the West. Perhaps less so in the US, but so far Chinese brands are quite popular in the EU. This could change quickly. Also this encourages to reduce the dependencies on China.
As a populous nation whose economy is based primarily on manufacturing, natural resources is the main thing that China would want to obtain from any other nation, particularly one with whom it shares the sixth-longest international border.
Anti-NATO sentiment has become pivotal to China's future and the new world order since recent events have pushed most of the world into America's corner (which hurts China).
Now they're basically compensating for Russia's mess (and won't ever let them forget that).
Anti-NATO (countries) sentiment has existed since those countries invaded and looted China (and many other countries) 200 years ago. This sentiment exists in much of the world but has economic consequences that most countries cannot bare.
Exactly. I think many also forget that Russia is not a traditional enemy of the rest of the world the same way it is to US/EU/Japan. The Cold War vibe in the US right now is like being a kid in the 90s hearing the military guys go apoplectic about "commies" anytime Russia comes up.
What's not to understand? Russia is doing the pre-production research of how China will need to protect their economy when they put their military in Taiwan.
> What's not to understand? Russia is doing the pre-production research of how China will need to protect their economy when they put their military in Taiwan.
China will not get sanctioned like Russia has. The world's dependence on Chinese manufacturing is like Europe's dependence on Russian gas, times ten.
Or, more precisely, it will get sanctioned like Russia has, but like the Russian sanctions, they will include exceptions for everything the West needs to buy from China, which is nearly everything.
I think it would take less sanctions to send Chinese to the streets, so China would be more likely to try not to get sanctioned. We see locally they vent fury over economic issues quite often despite much more locked down media and a generally better looking economy than Russia. People in China are fine with the government as long as the economy is good, not sure how they would react to the government getting sanctioned to a degree that makes their lives worse
If the sanction feels like an attack, it will only rally people, IMO. By all accounts, China isn't like the US where we mock blind nationalism all the time, they are very nationalistic and patriotic.
My understanding is some manufacturing is already moving away from China. If China invades Taiwan, the West won't be able to sanction them as quickly and as intensely, but it can accelerate the move to take its business elsewhere... Which it will have to do, because most of the world's most advanced chips come from TSMC, and if that's controlled by China, it's just dangerous.
Agreed. Now that the world is riveted by Russia's mad rush to pariahhood, this is an insanely bad time for anyone to jump on Russia's bandwagon. Apparently China has yet to learn that by showing wanton disrespect now for the most basic of international civil rights, you terrify and alienate your customer base. Barbarism is very bad business, and will surely haunt both the actors and their cheerleaders for a looong time to come.
This cuts both ways though, China is dependent on foreign agriculture[1], which Russia cannot provide them right now (certainly it will be hard to farm in Ukraine during an active conflict). Particularly for things like pork.[2]
Stopping the flow of just pork products to China may result in enormous unrest and it certainly wouldn't be a given that the CCP would be capable of quelling that.
> The world's dependence on Chinese manufacturing is like Europe's dependence on Russian gas, times ten.
This assumes that we won't make moves to mitigate this dependence in response to Russia's invasion. The US Innovation and Competition Act [1] likely has a much higher chance of passing today than it did prior to Russia's invasion. It calls for $250 billion investment in high tech manufacturing [2]. It has passed the Senate and is currently waiting in the House. I wouldn't be surprised to see the bill grow in scope.
>I even think that China could make the entire west civilization collapse just by stopping their exportation.
Then the West retaliates by stopping their export to China of even more basic things like food. I'm guessing China needs food imports much more than the West needs cheap plastic wares, knock off products, and other less critical than food things.
A lot of people in the west couldn't potentially afford a single modern computer or a smartphone without any piece from China.
At least it would push us to take reusing more seriously. Brutal decoupling from China could be really, probably extremely hard, but in a lot of aspects, intellectually interesting to watch.
How Europe will react to adapt the current crisis regarding fossils will also be really interesting. I'm just hoping that it will accelerate the de-carbonation of our energy sources. But it's just that, hopes.
We stopped letting them manufacture anything of strategic military or government significance. We are mostly dependent on them for basic household goods and consumer electronics. Those things could be cut back significantly without destroying our own economy. Keep in mind that China can't feed itself without the world. That is a much more dangerous dependence.
You are correct. The "Buy American Act" has some good features. We recently had to buy Anchor Chain for a gov vessel refirb and it literally took an act of congress to override and buy Chinese anchor chain. There is no one in USA who could provide it in a timely fashion. 52 week lead time is unsat.
China will trade Russia for wheat due to bad harvests.
We are driving Russia into Chinese hands with currency and transactions.
Too bad they have an dictator for life. He gambled and lost.
> We stopped letting them manufacture anything of strategic military or government significance. We are mostly dependent on them for basic household goods and consumer electronics. Those things could be cut back significantly without destroying our own economy.
That dependence still creates a significant political risk, which the West is in a poorer position to manage.
> Keep in mind that China can't feed itself without the world. That is a much more dangerous dependence.
That would be a serious vulnerability, except the world probably isn't united enough for it to matter. For instance, my understanding is Russia is a major food exporter. Add in a conquered Ukraine and maybe a couple other countries and you might fill that gap.
In the bigger context, we always did and still do. Even going so far to actively support some of them and not just tolerate. Especially when they were supposed to keep "communists" in check.
Just some examples. Those lists are for the US but of course by no means is it exclusive to the US.
> In the bigger context, we always did and still do. Even going so far to actively support some of them and not just tolerate. Especially when they were supposed to keep "communists" in check.
And the West may need get more comfortable with doing that, since we've seen some of the consequences. IMHO, sanctions against Belarus were probably a significant contributing factor to this war (i.e. they put Belarus in a position to be dominated by Putin, who took full advantage to support/strengthen his invasion of Ukraine).
I wonder if some middle ground is tenable (e.g. make a deal with a dictator that he will get full support for life, as long as he agrees his successor will be a properly democratic government).
We like to blame the West for the actions of dictators, but I wonder if a saner reading is that these things are generally inevitable. We wanted to "westernize" China by way of trade, and we probably succeeded to the extent that we could even if China remains communist. We sanctioned Belarus which probably would have become a dictatorship anyway. Similarly, I suspect your proposal to "make a deal with a dictator" will just result in that dictator declining his commitment on his deathbed (what does he have to lose? He's already gotten his lifelong dictatorship side of the deal).
Ultimately, democracy isn't just a way of organizing politically, it requires a culture that values/expects/demands democracy. If people don't value or demand democracy, then perhaps no amount of sanctions or toppling dictators is going to result in a reasonably democratic government, but conversely sanctions and toppling dictators probably isn't worsening the democratic prospect either (contrary to anti-Western propaganda and criticism).
All of those things but also, supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine is internally consistent with their views on Taiwan. They cannot denounce Russian aggression on Ukraine but still openly claim Taiwan.
It's actually the opposite: supporting Russia's invasion is in direct conflict with China's long-standing official line that sovereignty must be the primary principle in international relations.
From China's point of view, Taiwan is purely a question of Chinese sovereignty. They've never recognized the Taipei government and they try to sanction countries that do recognize Taiwan. The idea is that this "recognition limbo" leaves Taiwan under Chinese sovereignty by default.
Yet China has formally recognized Ukraine and its original post-Soviet borders. It's hard for them to now make the argument that Ukrainian sovereignty is meaningless but other countries must not interfere with Chinese sovereignty.
Of course the situation is nuanced. But we're here to discuss territorial wars of aggression. Not to write a book on ages old cultural interactions. Taiwan and China are both separate sovereign states defacto. They have functioning governments and standing militaries. Any meaningful discussion about the issue has to start from there. Pretending the RoC military doesn't exist just because a bunch of people on the mainland feels like it doesn't actually change reality.
If the PRC wants to change that reality then that means military action at this stage. One China quickly looks like woo woo bullshit when Chengdus start falling out of the sky and Taipei 101 gets hit with a cruise missile.
>If they invade it will be seen as an act of aggression and one nation invading another.
Sure but that doesn't mean they are the same. Ukraine is a country that is recognised by both Russia and a UN member state recognised by most of the world. Taiwan is not recognised by China and only 13 UN member states.
About a billion of these "deluded tankies" live in China.
> Russia does formally recognize them as a nation
Formal recognitions aside, but if you go anywhere from the Russian extreme left (e.g. Gorbachev) to the Russian extreme right (e.g. Solzhenitsyn), there's one thing they agree upon: they all think Ukraine is historically tied to Russia. Like it or not, there is a wide consensus in Russia with regards to that.
It has served Russian policy since the 90's to have Ukraine and Belarus as independent states, since 3 votes in the UN are better than one.
>About a billion of these "deluded tankies" live in China.
Yup. Although generally I reserve the term for those that come online to spout the propaganda. I suppose most are doing that within the sinosphere part of the internet.
>Formal recognitions aside, but if you go anywhere from the Russian extreme left (e.g. Gorbachev) to the Russian extreme right (e.g. Solzhenitsyn), there's one thing they agree upon: they all think Ukraine is historically tied to Russia. Like it or not, there is a wide consensus in Russia with regards to that.
>It has served Russian policy since the 90's to have Ukraine and Belarus as independent states, since 3 votes in the UN are better than one.
100% agree. I think the real reason Russia is doing this is because they see Ukraine as part of their sphere of influence and Ukrainians taking another path is unacceptable. For Russian leadership, its a case of exerting leverage and control on the states that have been "traditionally" under their thumb, this dates back through the communist era to Imperial Russia and even before in some cases. Its a very old and deep rooted notion.
For the average Russian I wouldn't be surprised if state media have convinced them of the average Ukrainian supporting Russia's invasion, as their outside propaganda claims.
I actually see a lot of parallels between this and how the US has handled stuff in its own backyard. There is a history of the US supporting tin pot dictators simply because the dictator was willing to play ball and the people of the nation overthrowing them. And then there's the banana wars.
I'd like to think we've grown out of that. But that's probably not the case. There is definitely still some intervention in central and south America mostly as part of the war on drugs, but that's not to the same degree as in the past .
China has never recognized Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Russia and China are among the parties to the Budapest Memorandum, a 1994 treaty recognizing Ukraine as a sovereign nation.
1: The international community probably doesn't care if they don't. It will still be seen as an invasion. 2: While Russia formally recognizes Ukraine as a country I don't believe they currently recognize its democratically elected government as legitimate which is the basis for their bogus Casus Belli.
Putin is doing this for popularity boost, as he has successfully employed several times before. The reasons he gives publicly are contradictory.
And in any case the treaty doesn't allow for invasion upon the government being perceived as illegitimate. This is an aggressive war, considered since the end of WW2 to be the supreme international crime.
The problem still so far is everything done to hold Putin accountable is viewed by Russians as the West vs Russia. This invasion is viewed not as aggressive war, but liberating Ukraine from Nazis. Exactly what Putin says domestically.
And yes, most of the rest of the world recognizes Taiwan as a sovereign country, except formally they use language consistent with One China to avoid a row with China
Taiwan, the island, was once a part of territory claimed by Imperial China. Eventually, Taiwan was given to Japan in some war back in the day.
Right before WWII, civil war broke out. The Chinese Communist party wanted to overthrow the ROC and reform the government in their image. Then WWII happened and they agreed to pause the civil war to deal with the Japanese coming in from East.
WWII ended with the defeat of Japan and as part of the terms of surrender, Taiwan was given back to the ROC.
After WWII, the civil war was back on, but with the ROC having been significantly weakened by WWII. Eventually, the CCP overthrew the ROC on the mainland and formed the People's Republic of China (PRC), while the ROC fled to the island of Taiwan.
The PRC sees Taiwan as part of China thanks to the Japanese terms of surrender. Taiwan was ceded to the government of China, they are the government of China. QED, Taiwan is theirs.
The ROC sees themselves as the rightful government of China in exile. Yes, Taiwan belongs to China, but they are China. The PRC needs to give the mainland back to them.
Things have progressed since then. There are some on the island with different opinions these days.
The policy of the PRC and some factions in the ROC is the One-China policy. There is only one China, it includes the mainland and Taiwan. The only disagreement is about which government is legitimate.
Some in the ROC advocate a two-state solution, in which you'd have the PRC and ROC, each with their territories and that's that.
Then there are people in Taiwan who feel that they should be their own independent nation and not "Chinese" at all.
So basically, with regards to your question, the answer is every answer possible. I think the official position is One-China though. I think there's enough of that faction to make winning elections impossible if you explicitly reject it.
Thank you for writing such a thorough comment. So often people comment on HN without a basis in any of these facts.
I think it’s important to add that Taiwan, like China, was an authoritarian state up until the 90s. The shift to democracy since then has given room for a lot of these different factions to take hold and develop on the island.
One thing to add, Taiwan formally gave up its claims to the mainland some time ago. While the One China policy still has some popularity there, it seems that the idea of Taiwan as a separate nation and people is growing day by day.
There's the ROC-in-exile people and then there are people who have lived on the island for generations.
Like, I said, things have progressed. There's "One China", "Two Chinas", and "China and Taiwan".
I think the longer things remain as they are, the more likely it'll settle into a "China and Taiwan" situation as both sides just kind of tire of fighting an issue their great grandparents started.
Wrong. China already said what they think: every country's sovereignity must be respected, and they hope the conflict in Ukraine will be resolved quickly... however, Taiwan is a domestic issue for China alone to worry about and other countries should stay out of it.
You have to love that line of thinking. Everyone gets self determination except for those guys because la la la we can't hear you they aren't a real country.
No foreign policy expert but it seems more complicated than that.
China still does recognise Ukraine as independent in the sense it continues to push for respect of "territorial integrity". It's a key part of Chinese foreign policy, and is what China uses to maintain its false claim over Taiwan (which it sees as Beijing territory, notwithstanding that Taiwanese people see themselves as independent).
Yet it still refuses to condemn Russian aggression on the basis that Russia has "security concerns" which China considers legitimate and the result of the US/NATO.
Confused? So am I. The stance is confused and confusing. It explains why the Beijing narrative seems to change daily as it attempts to push and balance these seemingly irreconcilable views.
> notwithstanding that Taiwanese people see themselves as independent.
It isn’t that cut and dry. Most Taiwanese people prefer the status quo, surely by no small measure due to the fact that an outright declaration of independence would provoke China, but still, people who paint the picture as black and white like you have are either advancing an agenda or simply ignorant of the facts on the ground in Taiwan.
That is the view of their current president and ruling party, yes.
It is not the position of the opposition party, nor does it align with historical precedents. Treating it as the official policy of Taiwan without a higher level of support such as a popular referendum, proclamation, or amendment to the ROC constitution doesn’t pass the smell test (what happens if the KMT comes back into power? Is Taiwan no longer independent?). No major country outside of Taiwan recognizes it as an independent nation for a reason.
I should note that I am personally supportive of the idea of an independent Taiwan, but I’m also able to check my western bias.
I think you're conflating whether Taiwanese people see themselves as independent, on the one hand, and whether they wish to formally declare that, on the other.
"The majority of Taiwanese believe that Taiwan is already an independent country called the Republic of China. ... more than 70 percent of Taiwanese agree with this statement." [0]
Note that I never said the people of Taiwan want to formally declare independence, which may risk starting a war. I'm prepared to accept that many Taiwanese are content with a "status quo" of diplomatic ambiguity, but I never suggested otherwise.
China needs oil, minerals, wood and food. Russia has all of these so a good relationship to Russia is a guarantee for access to those things. A weakened Russia might even need "assistance" to keep Siberia - where all those mentioned things are found - safe.
It is pretty simple; a regional war in Ukraine weakens both the west and Russia while reducing their focus on China. China's best strategic interest is to keep the regional war going as long as possible. China is not really "helping" Russia, rather propping up one side of the information war to ensure the war grinds on.
The trade war was inevitable. Trump only made it crude, jingoistic, and America-centric rather than getting a hemispheric alliance. He alienated his closest trading partners (Europe but Canada especially) while simultaneously undermining the trade relationship with China.
He was a blundering fool and his weakness contributed directly to the current situation in Ukraine, who he was willing to throw under the bus.
I think "the west" (if we can speak of that still, though maybe we can even more after this latest crisis in Ukraine) will likely need an internally coherent trading bloc to counteract the situation in the east.
That probably means a radical shift away from the China-Pacific trade push of the last 20-30 years and back towards a north-south and transatlantic route. My own country, Canada used to be a net food exporter, but now is a net importer, with large quantities of produce coming from China. It's going to have to change.
Billions have been spent trying (and mostly failing) to build pipelines to Pacific tidewater to export Canadian oil and gas (LNG) to China. We should have been sending it east. Germany could do with copious amounts of LNG right now, and the US and Canada could be providing it, but the planning wasn't there.
I can only hope the current crisis accelerates decarbonization in response -- but I fear the opposite will happen. All the "green energy" stocks I own are down, while oil and gas is up.
>How are they helping maintain global geopolitical harmony? Their actions seem to be doing the opposite
That depends on where you sit, doesn't it? Balance of power. The West constantly talking about spreading democracy around the globe isn't appealing to non-democratic governments.
China and Russia have been classically opposed and clashing forces since the 1800s, even under dual-communist regimes. It was so bad in the 1960s that the Soviets wanted to engage in pre-emptive nuclear war with China.
Making Russia completely dependent on China economically will put a leash on Russia, effectively establishing it as a Chinese protectorate much like the Li–Lobanov Treaty made China a Russian protectorate.
I think the answers to your question revolve around Russia ending up being an economically linked vassal state of China, China/India/Russia becoming an economic block, and a desire to not use the US dollar as a reserve currency.
Personally, I think Putin is screwing over his own people almost as badly as people in Ukraine - in the long run. Ukraine will get a lot of love from the west, when the fighting is over.
A pivot to Asia is what Russia actually needs (and needed, even before the war), Europe is a stagnating continent with a stagnating economy. I venture to say that in the long run this will benefit Russia (if they manage to remain in one piece, that is), because the growth can only come from there, i.e. from Asia.
You're mentioning China/India/Russia like they might be some minions, but taken together they have a population of about 3 billion people (out of ~8 billion the Earth now has) and a giant land surface (thanks to Russia, mostly).
Probably the Western US and Canada will also get dragged into this, economically speaking, for its own benefit.
What was the correct decision for Obama and its foreign policy advisers (they were the first ones to brand the "pivot to Asia" thing) in the early 2010s is also the right decision to take for today's Russia.
This seems like a weird argument. Russia was in a great position selling natural gas to Europe. Alternatives to Russian gas are quite a bit more expensive, so they were getting a good price. Russia could afford to limit exports to China.
Without exports to Europa, Russia would be completely at the mercy of China. Russia only has a tiny economy compared to China, so if China decides to play games, there is not much Russia can do.
Given China's recent behavior, it is extremely likely that Russia will get deals to mainly benefit China.
Selling only natural gas, even at very expensive prices, doesn't get you anywhere, long term, Putin knows as much that's why in the last few years Russia tried to make a conscious effort not to depend on oil and gas as an economy anymore (if I'm not mistaken the share of oil&gas in the Russian economy has gone down from about 14% to about 8-9% in the last few years, I'm too lazy to search for the exact Economist article where I had read that).
> Russia only has a tiny economy compared to China, so if China decides to play games,
From Putin's perspective, or whomever will take his place, it's better to be at China's mercy compared to being at the West's mercy (as present economic sanctions demonstrate it was the case), as in China and Russia are a lot more close, ideologically speaking, compared with how Russia and the West compare. And Russia still has and will have nukes, there's no way for China to take some piece of Russia's Far East (which I know you didn't mention but is a point often made when it comes to the Russia-China relation).
A weakened Russia is the best thing that can happen for China and India if they get Russia to completely cut from the west. Russia and the vast amount of natural resources are at their disposal at a really low prize.
Two things. a) Putin's actions in Ukraine (and who knows where else) have ideological justifications similar to China's justifications of their actions in Xinjiang and Tibet.
But also, the lines used by both regimes bear aesthetic resemblance to "anti-colonialist" and "anti-imperialist" narratives propagated by both the Stalinist and Maoist regimes in the past. Lots of "we're counteracting western aggression" [somewhat questionable here, Russia has never been under explicit military threat in this century] and "but the west does it too" [whataboutism, a diversion tactic]
They were hypocritical arguments back in the Soviet era, with the way the Soviets treated Poland or Afghanistan, etc. but are way more threadbare now, hollowed of any "substance" at all.
So I don't know how much of what is going on in China in regards to this is actually based on any geo-political strategy or how much of it is just reflexive fall-back to classic Maoist views of the west, a position against western imperialism.
Like, we want to see some global strategy here, but it's also quite likely that the people at the heads of these regimes are much more incompetent than we give them credit for, and playing a game infused with ideological grudges which are only partially understood in the west.
Clearly what is long-term good for China is continued peaceful trade with the west. Yes, there's tension around the basis of that, and how it is formulated. And "the west" certainly has its own aggressive colonialist and imperialist dominance which China feels compelled to counteract. But it seems to me there is no reason for China to toss the table over and stir up this level of chaos. It feels extremely ideological.
Putin's rambling speech before the invasion -- justifying it -- referenced old debates within the Soviet past... he directly referenced and attacked Lenin and Lenin's positions (and Trotsky's -- a Ukrainian Jew) on the "national question" and national self-determination. Essentially from his POV Ukraine "only existed" because of the early Bolshevik positions on ethnicities etc.
Classical Leninism, pre-Stalin, was concerned with granting federal independence to various Soviet ethnicities, to explicitly take apart Tsarist imperialism, and establish what they saw as a socialist federalism and this went along with an internationalist focus as well, as they hoped their revolution would spread to the west (and it did, sort of, in Germany and Hungary, but fizzled out.)
After the failure of revolution in the west, and after Lenin died, Stalin came to power, brutally purged most of the old Bolsheviks, and instituted a kind of revanchist policy and restored major aspects of the old Tsarist pre-revolutionary Russian bureaucracy and internal policies. He paid some lip service to Lenin's position on the national question but basically committed internal genocide (and forced relocations) on various minority populations in the USSR, and was responsible for millions of deaths in Ukraine. Sort of ironic given he himself was of a minority ethnicity (Georgian) origin.
Anyways, in Putin's speech he said explicitly that Lenin's position on national self-determination was incompatible with a functional state. And he's right. Lenin's position was explicitly against the kind of (authoritarian, Russo-supremacist) state Putin wants, and Stalin wanted, which is why Stalin had to murder all the old guard Bolsheviks while committing genocide against Ukrainians (and others) and Putin has to invade Ukraine and god knows who else next. Their image/fantasy of what Russia is or has to be, requires it. And given China's behaviour in Tibet and Xinjiang, they have similar perspectives.
Good. Lets hear all sides. Everyone should check out as many state propaganda around the world they can and not rely on just one state propaganda for "truth". All propaganda has innate biases and they all spin stories for their agenda. The easiest way to understand this is by looking at state propaganda around the world on a single topic like ukraine. Then you'll understand that truly, the truth is the first casualty of war. It's a luxury afforded to people not in war at the moment. So we should enjoy this privilege while we can.
There are always "all sides". Always. To deny this is to deny reality.
> a big fat kid beating up a skinny kid when that skinny kid did NOTHING to the big fat kid.
Nobody believes this. Even you don't. So why do you say it? Russia didn't all of a sudden invade ukraine for no reason. There is obviously a reason. Whether you believe the casus belli is justified is another matter.
> you lose all moral high ground.
There is no moral high ground in war. Only winners and losers. And the winners will decide what the moral high ground is.
> i don't understand why people believe there is any sides to this war.
Because it's a fact. Every war has multiple angles to it because every war has different sides. Denying the obvious isn't going to help. Maybe it'll convince the uneducated. But you aren't going to convince intelligent people with such a zealous argument.
>> Russia didn't all of a sudden invade ukraine for no reason.
Or maybe Russia fanned the conflict over the years, supporting separatists and paving the way into this invasion. To have reasons and excuses for it...
> ...and downplay Russia's actions in launching an unprovoked invasion
I would argue it is not "unprovoked". By incorporating Ukraine, NATO will have a direct adjacent border with Russia head to head, and missiles will be placed along the border, right at Russia's doorstep, what a stupid strategy for world peace. Putin has told us over many years it's unacceptable for the Russians. Think when USSR tried to place missiles in Cuba.
Edit: for folks who clearly disagree, I'd like to recommend a speech by John Mearsheimer, which is currently gaining 3M views per day, now at 19M: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Except NATO never incorporated Ukraine, nor did they want to. Ukraine asked and were told no.
> a direct adjacent border with Russia head to head
There's always a direct NATO line. Ironically, if Russia annexes Ukraine and Belarus (as seems to be there goal) there will be a direct border between Russia and NATO.
> It's definitely unacceptable for Russia, remember what happened when USSR tried to place missiles in Cuba?
Back then long-range ICBMs didn't exist in large quantities. Nor did missile submarines or other assured second strike capability. The calculus has changed and proximity is no longer the valuable thing it once was.
Besides that, NATO doesn't put missiles in every member state. They aren't in Latvia/Lithuania/etc.
WTF are you talking about ? NATO explicitly said that it has no plans to incorporate Ukraine. And incorporating Ukraine was not possible given the disputed territory of Crimea.
Your are just repeating Putin's propaganda here.
Everything about the West's relationship with China is asymmetric.
I don't really blame China for realpolitik while trying to play catch up here, but I do wish they'd stop their expansionism. They already have enough people and resources to be the world #1 economy. Also the human rights violations are a bit of a mystery to me --- what's the point of a strong economy if people are suffering? Hopefully that will resolve itself in the same way the US used slave labor to bootstrap itself (unjustly, but it is what it is) then later banned it.
Always chuckle when we talk corporate or western state-sponsored propaganda yet "we" still have shit like this. Collusion between the private companies and governments is fascism, by definition. Which is what China does in their country, and which is what we sometimes allow, willingly or not, in our countries through the internet.
I personally am against censorship of any kind. And while that in principle means allowing propaganda garbage from all sides, it also means not censoring domestic "propaganda"(which could be anything depending on your reference) or material. People dislike this because having a personal filter is hard, but the alternative is arguably worse if you only allow a certain side.(which goes back to the first point of fascism by collusion)
Free Speech for individuals does not mean that we have an interest in allowing foreign and potentially hostile actors to run propaganda campaigns using the ad targeting machine we have built using social media.
They can say what they want and every citizen can do so as well, but we should not allow asymmetric amplification.
As someone who lives in a country where political advertising is illegal, I'm pretty confident you can shut that crap down without impacting free speech.
Nah, that's over. The American public is too delicate to be exposed to official state broadcasts because they might be biased towards the state that produced them.
Do you also think the US army should stop running recruitment ads targeting teens? What about BP advertisements which are really just to get political support?
What is political propaganda is a very… political question.
> What is political propaganda is a very… political question.
Good thing that's not the issue here. The issue is where it comes from. It can be political- I don't like that it's foreign. I don't think freedom of speech means letting known foreign propaganda run hog wild on your platforms and control your information.
This thread was about any political propaganda on Facebook, but if you want to narrow down the discussion...
Some of us are old enough to remember when the US Intelligence community lied through NYTimes and NPR to drag us into the Iraq war. (Also the first Golf war. Also the Vietnam war.)
If you only care about foreign propaganda you’re still going to have a lot of evil done. And given that the US is the worlds last super power our own internal propaganda machine is pretty important.
>Do you also think the US army should stop running recruitment ads targeting teens? What about BP advertisements which are really just to get political support?
I can't speak for the previous commenter, but I do not understand the implied complexity of bringing up those two examples. I would absolutely agree with removing them, just as much as removing propaganda ads from Chinese state media.
“Visit Thailand” is both selling services and propaganda. “Russian war is Ok” is a different kind of propaganda. It’s easy to see the difference between the two and online ad platforms should be able to make a reasonable distinction in most cases.
No it couldn't make an easy distinction. Let's suppose someone sells stickers. A "Russian War Is Okay" sticker could be easily seen as propaganda. But expression often not direct. How about a simple white Z design?[0] Services and propaganda intertwine. Not that I'd like to defend those who profit from war. But content moderation is a really hard problem.
>“Russian war is Ok” is a different kind of propaganda. It’s easy to see the difference between the two
As an American company, sure. I'm not sure it's that easy if you consider yourself a global company. There is support (or at least acceptance) for this invasion, including parts of Ukraine.
Free speech does not mean anyone should offer a megaphone to some private entity (especially non-individual ones).
It's up to Twitter and Facebook to decide if they want such messages amplified on their platform and to earn money for that.
Or we can make these platform utilities but then, we could also make ads illegal in public spaces (I can speak freely when I take the subway, but I'm not allowed to yell advertisements, and it's fine!).
Labs were given to Ukraine from the US DoD/DTRA, so pretty easy jump for conspiracy theorists to go all biowarfare zombie sarin etc. The page below explains what they are actually used for.
It is the strategy one should worry. With china backed by Russia it is a much bigger problem latter as you have a more self contained (energy and military strategy) empire with a sidekick. It is more like North Korea but on a much bigger scale. Given so far no good strategy to contain its ambition, and the diversion of focus to Europe, china will dominate pacific and the link on the land bridge. Originally it might be a rivalary but now forced cooperation.
Not sure how this bigger game being played out.
Btw short term asking china to help … it its so ridiculous but pop up so many times it is not even funny. What happen china really can deliver and work with Russia what then …
Are we sure it is CCP IP address. CGTN might have established offices outside PRC and those might be the one publishing these.
Also, banning CGTN is not the way, just like banning RT wasn't. I can understand banning demonstrably false misinformation but that should be content specific, complete RT ban doesn't sit right with me.
Economist has published articles stating how Iraq war was justified or NYT with their WMD propoganda. RT was doing it at a massive scale but it doesn't seem right nonetheless.
War time: This foreign government bought ADS! They're promoting propaganda and influencing our policy, election, populace! My own government (which only tells the truth) must stop this from happening.
Unfortunately, a big chunk of propaganda (to use the word very broadly - not just wartime propaganda) relies on information that is either true, subjective, or non-verifiable, and the dishonesty comes in the form of the context in which it is presented, cherry-picking, lies of omission, implications, assumptions, and optimizing for emotion rather than plain information delivery.
Yes, the most powerful propaganda uses truth and logical fallacy to influence. Any time Putin is challenged about killing his political opponents, he responds with whataboutisms about protests and police killings in the US. All true, but entirely irrelevant.
Because of the bias of the “fact” checkers, I guess?
But seriously, the term “fact checking” is just a modern euphemism for propaganda.
The other day Facebook “fact checked” a peer reviewed paper in the British Medical Journal. There are so many ridiculous examples. This blind trust people have is worrying.
If you read the original post you were replying to, then read your post, your post appears to be only tangentially related, utilizes sarcasm and implied political hostility, and makes an accusation that doesn't seem warranted. The post you were replying to seemed to be genuinely referring to the same platform's famous fact-checking of Trump, merely as a point of comparison. There was no implication of some kind of hypocritical opinion regarding whom should and should not be fact-checked.
That's what causes these kinds of rambling forks in threads.
> That's what causes these kinds of rambling forks in threads.
I’m of the opinion that people reading too much into things, like you appear to be doing in your previous (long) paragraph, is what causes those kinds of rambling forks.
> Can you point to what specifically is misinformation in the article about Biden's order? Let me guess, you like cryptocurrency and it said things you don't like.
You also said that Biden has a monopoly on what we see in the press. Um, that's pretty far from true, and anyway, he is the president so I would expect his messages to be shared widely.
‘nuff said. You are clearly lashing out, so it would be better to discontinue this conversation with you at this time.
The ads being put out in the daily newspapers and radio on his behalf are one good example. He has a near monopoly on what words and concepts are broadcast. Those things should probably be just as fact checked as any other thing.
it's an article about an executive order that was signed today and accurate describes the landscape. It's pro-establishment but not propaganda. Why do you think it's propaganda?
I'm uncomfortable with how this article talks about how evil the ads are without actually showing them. It's not clear to me who is doing the propaganda here (the ads vs the article about the ads).
Nailed it. I think that very few people would say that Chinese state media is not a propaganda machine, and Axios has a noticeable spin to it in general.
The “ADV Podcasts” (a China focused podcast) has talked about the propaganda collaboration of Putin’s government and the CCP government for some weeks.
I, personally, agree with your assessment of the post being a wumaodang, but I've been incorrect on that front before (and corrected by dang himself, who had done previous investigation into the account I was concerned about), and so in the spirit of the HN guidelines "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like." I think it might be best to elide that particular statement...
...which doesn't invalidate the rest of your comment, at all.
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
You're probably being downvoted because your post (a) is whataboutism (b) is emotionally-heavy while content-light (c) seems to make the assumption that Russian/Chinese propaganda is somehow equivalent to US propaganda and (d) violates several of the HN guidelines.
