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aaaand again China doing whatever it wants and nobody doing anything about it. When will this stop? Personally i'm boycotting their product and services as muc

aaaand again China doing whatever it wants and nobody doing anything about it. When will this stop? Personally i'm boycotting their product and services as much as possible.

akudha 5y ago
Unless you’re very rich or living like a monk, boycotting Chinese made products is not an easy task. Go to any American supermarket and look at the labels, I bet a majority of them are made in China. Voting with wallet only works when there are options. I bet the devices that you and I used to write these very comments are highly likely made in China too, at least partly
- nkozyra 5y ago
  > Go to any American supermarket and look at the labels, I bet a majority of them are made in China. A great deal of our overall consumer products are, but most of our consumables come from the US or Central/South America.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Walmart has made an effort to stock mostly American products. Clothes and shoes are main exceptions at any store, although options do exist.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ianai 5y ago
The reigning choice since Kissinger seems to be “appeasement”. His reasoning was their population size.
nend 5y ago
I mean you can say this same thing about several countries. USA, Russia, China all come to mind. Turns out countries with power often act similarly as people with power, unethically in order to advance their own interests. It's not just a "someone needs to stop china" problem, it's more systemic. Stopping china from doing this one thing is just treating symptoms, not the underlying cause.
newacct583 5y ago
Fishery regulation cheating is pervasive everywhere, almost none of these rules have working teeth. Every ocean species for which there is a market anywhere is being catastrophically overexploited, regardless of what regulations say. That said, I guess... I'm actually OK with jingoist anti-China hatred in this particular case if it helps drive attention to a genuine ecological catastrophe? The woke hippies welcome you aboard, mate.
- GordonS 5y ago
  I was going to make a similar point - this is a persistent problem anywhere there are profitable fish stocks, and absolutely not just by the Chinese - the French, Spanish, whoever, there are plenty of people at it.
  - teachingassist 5y ago
    Nobody has yet mentioned the UK, but: reduced regulation on fishing was a big motivator for Brexit, where the campaign had its roots deep in coastal towns.
    - newacct583 5y ago
      Which is deeply self-defeating, because those jobs are going away when the fish disappear anyway. The only question is who gets to eat the last ones.
    - GordonS 5y ago
      Well, British fishermen thought we'd be "taking back control of our waters", and wouldn't be in the situation where they have smaller quotas that the large Spanish and French vessels that fish British waters do. Of course, it didn't work out like that.
      - teachingassist 5y ago
        I assume the thinking was somewhat broader than that (fishermen only have 10,000 votes between them). I assume that people understood their town's local economy would be uplifted by a renewed fishing industry. Of course, that was never a real possibility.
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
When military vessels open fire on and sink Chinese Fishing Boats located inside territorial waters.
- sneak 5y ago
  It was Isaac Asimov who, in the Foundation series, once famously said that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
  - Proven 5y ago
    it seems there's another level below that, an inability to distinguish violence from defence.
  - dnh44 5y ago
    Would any person in any country argue that their leaders aren't incompetent?
  - koheripbal 5y ago
    That's true except for the times it isn't.
  - ArkanExplorer 5y ago
    The purpose of the military is to maintain the territorial sovereignty of the nation, against illegal entry from migrants/smugglers or chinese fishermen. If the military cannot perform this task then why does Argentina spend $3billion on them? The obvious answer is that Argentina is a failed state, incapable of defending itself.
    - sneak 5y ago
      Sovereignty is a slippery abstraction. What we’re talking about here is doing violence against someone on a boat who has directly harmed no one, whose only crime is crossing an invisible line and perhaps stealing some food. Now, I’m not going to get down in to the weeds about fishing property rights, but it looks like you’re trying to climb up this abstraction layer (“territorial sovereignty”) to justify violence against the peaceful. If indeed they are stealing from someone under the law, I don’t think violent action via a national military is in any way whatsoever a proportionate response. You seem to be advocating for collective guilt because there are so many, and collective guilt or group punishment is a violation of human rights.
bserge 5y ago
And Spain, apparently. And a few others, too. https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/oceana-reports-chinese-spanish-squid-vessels-going-dark-off-argentina https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/oce... [Insert monkey puppet meme.] Not defending them, but it looks like it's a wider problem than just "China bad".
booleandilemma 5y ago
Is it even possible to boycott China at this point?
- seangp 5y ago
  Probably not, but governments need to start weaning themselves from China’s teat. It won’t be easy and it will take a while, but it can be done.
baron_harkonnen 5y ago
The US has overthrown multiple democratic governments to get what it wants. I personally prefer China's blatant disregard for the rules over the United State's efforts to forcibly rewrite the rules in their favor.
- beebeepka 5y ago
  You can tell it's an American website when stating the obvious is routinely downvoted or flagged without explanation.
- magicsmoke 5y ago
  Rules are a way for whichever party is more powerful at the time of rule writing to lock in advantages in their favor. Take a look at any US election cycle, each parties tries to create laws that it knows will be difficult to overturn even if they get voted out in 4 years. Is it any wonder a rising power chafes at rules that it didn't get same amount of influence over at the time of writing because it was weaker? Our entire structure of international law is based on decisions made in those first few years after WW2. It's been 70+ years since then and the world has changed dramatically. I'm quite concerned that if the current international structure isn't flexible enough to bend and accommodate the pressure those changes, its going to break like an earthquake fault and we could very well have a WW3 scenario on our hands.
- mint2 5y ago
  That’s like people who preferred Donald trump. Indications from other areas showed he was going to be worse, but he hadn’t already had an actual history in office so many former supporters were unable to extrapolate. Xinjiang, Tibet, and events in Hong Hong don’t bode well. Trends in the South China Sea show that China doesn’t respect its neighboring countries claims either. So the external events that do exist are not promising that China will be better. And in internal politics and equality, we haven’t yet forced academics and professionals into labor camps but it may be trending that way. Edit: I’m by no means downplaying the terribleness the USA did in South America, the Middle East or elsewhere nor our own internal discriminations and worse, I’m pointing out that given the limited information we have, it does not give any confidence that China will be an improvement. My own feel given my fairly limited understanding is that overall it will be worse for the environment and justice globally and at the very best essentially the same but with a new face.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
> Personally i'm boycotting their product and services as much as possible. Good luck with that. Turn over pretty much any item in your house, and you’ll see ”Made in China.” Every single one of our nations has its markets dominated by corporations that have found the only way to compete, is to manufacture in China. Many nations are now incapable of manufacturing their own goods. Once you’re a pickle, you’ll never be a cucumber again.
- iso8859-1 5y ago
  Taiwanese products are also marked as "Made in China". So it's not as bad as you think.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Yes, but this still adds to the atrophy of local manufacturing expertise. This did not start with China. Japan did it after WWII (remember "cheap Japanese"?). Korea did it after Japan. Now, both Korea and Japan are becoming known for high-quality, pricey stuff. Many Korean and Japanese corporations manufacture in China, Thailand, and Vietnam. China is headed that way too, but it may take longer.
  - breckenedge 5y ago
    Huh, what market are you in? Just yesterday I bought a tool that was “Made in Taiwan” over two “Made in China” alternatives.
  - steve_adams_86 5y ago
    I’ve seen a lot of things marked as made in Taiwan. Look at bike frames and you’ll quickly notice one made there.
  - ridaj 5y ago
    There are items made in China by Taiwan-based companies, which are marked as such, but stuff actually manufactured in Taiwan is marked as made in Taiwan
- Finnucane 5y ago

aaaand again China doing whatever it wants and nobody doing anything about it. When will this stop? Personally i'm boycotting their product and services as much as possible.

akudha 5y ago

Unless you’re very rich or living like a monk, boycotting Chinese made products is not an easy task. Go to any American supermarket and look at the labels, I bet a majority of them are made in China. Voting with wallet only works when there are options. I bet the devices that you and I used to write these very comments are highly likely made in China too, at least partly

nkozyra 5y ago
> Go to any American supermarket and look at the labels, I bet a majority of them are made in China. A great deal of our overall consumer products are, but most of our consumables come from the US or Central/South America.
giantg2 5y ago
Walmart has made an effort to stock mostly American products. Clothes and shoes are main exceptions at any store, although options do exist.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ianai 5y ago

The reigning choice since Kissinger seems to be “appeasement”. His reasoning was their population size.

nend 5y ago

I mean you can say this same thing about several countries. USA, Russia, China all come to mind. Turns out countries with power often act similarly as people with power, unethically in order to advance their own interests. It's not just a "someone needs to stop china" problem, it's more systemic. Stopping china from doing this one thing is just treating symptoms, not the underlying cause.

newacct583 5y ago

Fishery regulation cheating is pervasive everywhere, almost none of these rules have working teeth. Every ocean species for which there is a market anywhere is being catastrophically overexploited, regardless of what regulations say. That said, I guess... I'm actually OK with jingoist anti-China hatred in this particular case if it helps drive attention to a genuine ecological catastrophe? The woke hippies welcome you aboard, mate.

GordonS 5y ago
I was going to make a similar point - this is a persistent problem anywhere there are profitable fish stocks, and absolutely not just by the Chinese - the French, Spanish, whoever, there are plenty of people at it.
- teachingassist 5y ago
  Nobody has yet mentioned the UK, but: reduced regulation on fishing was a big motivator for Brexit, where the campaign had its roots deep in coastal towns.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    Which is deeply self-defeating, because those jobs are going away when the fish disappear anyway. The only question is who gets to eat the last ones.
  - GordonS 5y ago
    Well, British fishermen thought we'd be "taking back control of our waters", and wouldn't be in the situation where they have smaller quotas that the large Spanish and French vessels that fish British waters do. Of course, it didn't work out like that.
    - teachingassist 5y ago
      I assume the thinking was somewhat broader than that (fishermen only have 10,000 votes between them). I assume that people understood their town's local economy would be uplifted by a renewed fishing industry. Of course, that was never a real possibility.

ArkanExplorer 5y ago

When military vessels open fire on and sink Chinese Fishing Boats located inside territorial waters.

sneak 5y ago
It was Isaac Asimov who, in the Foundation series, once famously said that "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
- Proven 5y ago
  it seems there's another level below that, an inability to distinguish violence from defence.
- dnh44 5y ago
  Would any person in any country argue that their leaders aren't incompetent?
- koheripbal 5y ago
  That's true except for the times it isn't.
- ArkanExplorer 5y ago
  The purpose of the military is to maintain the territorial sovereignty of the nation, against illegal entry from migrants/smugglers or chinese fishermen. If the military cannot perform this task then why does Argentina spend $3billion on them? The obvious answer is that Argentina is a failed state, incapable of defending itself.
  - sneak 5y ago
    Sovereignty is a slippery abstraction. What we’re talking about here is doing violence against someone on a boat who has directly harmed no one, whose only crime is crossing an invisible line and perhaps stealing some food. Now, I’m not going to get down in to the weeds about fishing property rights, but it looks like you’re trying to climb up this abstraction layer (“territorial sovereignty”) to justify violence against the peaceful. If indeed they are stealing from someone under the law, I don’t think violent action via a national military is in any way whatsoever a proportionate response. You seem to be advocating for collective guilt because there are so many, and collective guilt or group punishment is a violation of human rights.

bserge 5y ago

And Spain, apparently. And a few others, too. https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/oceana-reports-chinese-spanish-squid-vessels-going-dark-off-argentina https://www.nationalfisherman.com/national-international/oce... [Insert monkey puppet meme.] Not defending them, but it looks like it's a wider problem than just "China bad".

booleandilemma 5y ago

Is it even possible to boycott China at this point?

seangp 5y ago
Probably not, but governments need to start weaning themselves from China’s teat. It won’t be easy and it will take a while, but it can be done.

baron_harkonnen 5y ago

The US has overthrown multiple democratic governments to get what it wants. I personally prefer China's blatant disregard for the rules over the United State's efforts to forcibly rewrite the rules in their favor.

beebeepka 5y ago
You can tell it's an American website when stating the obvious is routinely downvoted or flagged without explanation.
magicsmoke 5y ago
Rules are a way for whichever party is more powerful at the time of rule writing to lock in advantages in their favor. Take a look at any US election cycle, each parties tries to create laws that it knows will be difficult to overturn even if they get voted out in 4 years. Is it any wonder a rising power chafes at rules that it didn't get same amount of influence over at the time of writing because it was weaker? Our entire structure of international law is based on decisions made in those first few years after WW2. It's been 70+ years since then and the world has changed dramatically. I'm quite concerned that if the current international structure isn't flexible enough to bend and accommodate the pressure those changes, its going to break like an earthquake fault and we could very well have a WW3 scenario on our hands.
mint2 5y ago
That’s like people who preferred Donald trump. Indications from other areas showed he was going to be worse, but he hadn’t already had an actual history in office so many former supporters were unable to extrapolate. Xinjiang, Tibet, and events in Hong Hong don’t bode well. Trends in the South China Sea show that China doesn’t respect its neighboring countries claims either. So the external events that do exist are not promising that China will be better. And in internal politics and equality, we haven’t yet forced academics and professionals into labor camps but it may be trending that way. Edit: I’m by no means downplaying the terribleness the USA did in South America, the Middle East or elsewhere nor our own internal discriminations and worse, I’m pointing out that given the limited information we have, it does not give any confidence that China will be an improvement. My own feel given my fairly limited understanding is that overall it will be worse for the environment and justice globally and at the very best essentially the same but with a new face.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

> Personally i'm boycotting their product and services as much as possible. Good luck with that. Turn over pretty much any item in your house, and you’ll see ”Made in China.” Every single one of our nations has its markets dominated by corporations that have found the only way to compete, is to manufacture in China. Many nations are now incapable of manufacturing their own goods. Once you’re a pickle, you’ll never be a cucumber again.

iso8859-1 5y ago
Taiwanese products are also marked as "Made in China". So it's not as bad as you think.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Yes, but this still adds to the atrophy of local manufacturing expertise. This did not start with China. Japan did it after WWII (remember "cheap Japanese"?). Korea did it after Japan. Now, both Korea and Japan are becoming known for high-quality, pricey stuff. Many Korean and Japanese corporations manufacture in China, Thailand, and Vietnam. China is headed that way too, but it may take longer.
- breckenedge 5y ago
  Huh, what market are you in? Just yesterday I bought a tool that was “Made in Taiwan” over two “Made in China” alternatives.
- steve_adams_86 5y ago
  I’ve seen a lot of things marked as made in Taiwan. Look at bike frames and you’ll quickly notice one made there.
- ridaj 5y ago
  There are items made in China by Taiwan-based companies, which are marked as such, but stuff actually manufactured in Taiwan is marked as made in Taiwan
Finnucane 5y ago