China has been working to increase the PLAN’s power and reach this past decade. They are nearing to a blue water navy at this point, and have broken through the first island chain, within which they are no longer considered to be defeatable without extreme cost.

The US has withdrawn their concentration back to Guam (previously, they didn’t bothered to arm the second island chain).

China has 20x the manufacturing power of the US and a bigger PPP (more efficient use of their military budget) , and they have known the US will one day come for them since Mao. Their recent ships are lighter in tonnage but newer than the American fleet by several decades, carries better equipment, radar, with greater fire power that makes them more equal to traditional ships one category higher in tonnage.

Finally, they aren’t building a navy to project power around the globe like the US navy does. The PLAN intends to have the capability to defend their home waters and to protect their economic interests abroad, that’s it, so it will never need to have as many ships as the US navy, so a tonnage or ship number comparison would not be an accurate measure of the PLAN capabilities.

To be fair they are parliamentarian and have been for centuries.

But, the parliament is literally staffed by aristocrats and other types of ruling elite, so…

Japan is less holding a grudge than suffering from the deep fear that China, now powerful once more, will retaliate against them for their WWII atrocities. This belief is discussed above- and below-the-table among their right-wing politicians and intelligentsia. Who also happens to be in power. As China rises, they are increasing anxious at their inability to protect themselves. While extremely unlikely to engage in a hot war with China, Japan is suspected to be taking the opportunity of a loosening american stranglehold to build up their self-defense instead. Even now under immense US pressure, they will not do anything beyond “support” the US forces as a base for operations.

NK will fully counter anything SK does. Nk sees all the recent US/Japanese joint military exercises in the area aimed against China as threatening them (which makes sense, given their history and perspective). Hence their recently becoming more and more vocal in their warnings.

In geopolitics, no country will throw itself into a fight between two superpowers. Apart from some fighty words, which country is jumping at the chance to intervene in Ukraine?

Taiwan is not a real option. It is a small island within direct military reach of the mainland, has 2% of mainland China’s population, 4% of its gpd. Even if NATO gave it all of their weapons, it has zero chances to do any real damage. Hence, the Taiwanese separatist base (33% of population) firmly believes that the US will send in its navy to fight FOR them, and are not at all imagining THEMSELVES as future freedom fighters (Taiwanese army at historic low membership this year). Its major benefit lies in that China has no intentions to destroy Taiwan, so things are unlikely to go too badly there.

有没有 have or not have 时间 time 陪我 accompany me/accommodate me 聊聊天 chat a bit

It’s a way to turn any action into a question. It could be a more casual and informal, more endearing /soft way of questioning something (depending on the actual emotional tone you say it with, if course) .

看没看过？have…seen it? 吃没吃过？have… eaten it? 玩没玩过？have … played it? 读没读过？have … read it?

是不是 （很好玩）？isn’t it (fun)? 好不好 isn’t it good? 看不看xyz–do (you/we/they) wanna watch xyz? 知不知道xyz–do…know xyz?

Etc.

To sound less like a robot, here’s my suggested rewrite for you ;D

你好，我叫xxx，我正在学汉语。你好吗？你会说普通话吗？有没有时间陪我聊聊天？

Etc.

I can’t do americanized Chinese food I confess, I’m not American enough for that ;D

If ALPS, this fancy amazing mysterious process, has actually successfully filtered out all 64 potentially irradiating elements in the water that had touched Fukushima’s exposed core, the inventers should be awarded ALL the prizes in the world for science, peace, betterment of humanity , etc. They should publish their process and results in all the science journals for the world to admire. For ye, all our nuclear fears are solved! Let nuclear energy proliferate hereon!

But no. Japan refuses to let any other country do testing at release points. They budget 70 billion yen for PR purposes for a release program that only cost 34 billion yen (cheapest option out of 5). They conduct a test for only 2 elements, saying their safe levels mean the water itself is entirely safe.

All this can be resolved SO EASILY if they just allow scientists from affected countries to check the process and test the water at regular intervals, then publish their result to indicate continued safety. Korean people won’t have to demonstrate on the street by the 50,000, China/HK/USA/etc will instantly permit importing their seafood again. Folks will stop hoarding salt, and all can take a deep breath and chill. Win win.

But they won’t.

I honestly thought you made up this quote to be ironic, only to find it’s actually in the article. Orz

There was a period when foreigners, especially English-speaking white foreigners, were treated effusively in China, elevated above all Chinese people and often far above the natural social place these folks had back in their own countries. They got better jobs, better job situations and benefits, and Chinese people in general gave them respect and admiration based on their whiteness and exotic Westerness alone.

Then China opened up to the world at ever increasing pace, Chinese people became more sophisticated, and an entire generation of previously-fêted foreigners lost their elevated place in society. They crashed back to earth and drifted back to the social positions they always would have had based on their personal abilities and talents.

Laowhy and Serpentza lived through the tail part of that shift. The good and easy time they’d had in China soon ended, they were barely making ends meet, and soon had to leave. They became deeply bitter, and attributed that natural change in society to the CPC ruining the good times for everyone, not just themselves. Thereafter they fell in with various anti-China crowds within and without China, and also found just how lucrative anti-China videos are on yt.

So it’s a combination of both a personal sense of being wronged, plus the good grift, that resulted in their channels and stance today. They were always grifters at heart, the change in money merely changed the nature of their content.

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Also, why is the talk only about tritium and carbon-14 in this report, ignoring 64 other elements present in the water that potentially contain harmful effects. The IAEA report states they only investigated these two elements by Japan’s request, it does not imply that there are no other elements they can or should also investigate, just they didn’t because they weren’t requested to.

It’s the SCMP, Lol. The content is occasionally objective, but the readership is like 80% anti-China.

What? That’s exactly what happens. Various stations in Washington DC have been closed, for 6+ months at a time, the past two years, for renovations. They made do with route workaround and shuttles in the meantime. Are you implying stations shouldn’t update just because it might cause inconvenience? Safety trumps inconvenience.

Haha, exactly, I agree with your message and how it was worded :) I was just adding some nuance.

As a non-CPC-hating Chinese American living in the West, I’m fairly aware of how these tactic are used, alas. The thing is, there is a kernel of truth there–even when distorted and used for dishonest purposes to smear the CPC–such that to dismiss it altogether, would make one’s counterargument ring false as well. This kernel of truth lies behind anti-CPC sentiments within China itself, along with Chinese liberals yearning to live in capitalistic freedom, with naive people imagining the West is a utopia, etc etc. I think it’s good to acknowledge it where possible, in its historic context.

As for how these stories are depicted in China, things were fairly repressed up til the 90s, then increasingly discussed, the history taught, scholarly articles written, etc. I can’t speak for much beyond that, as I do not live in China, though I get a window into it due to being bilingual via Chinese media and social media. To go by all the recent pop culture dramas and movies, it’s not a time that most people want to dwell upon. Both far away in the past, and yet not quite far away enough for completely open dissection.

I want to mention, people whose family were dragged through the culture revolution, etc., CAN have legitimate concerns and trauma. They aren’t just wrong, things WERE scary.

My grandparents on both sides had ran away from their farmer families in their teens to join the Long March, eventually all made contributions to the Party (e.g. once, my grandma served as a spy behind Japanese lines in a village, then when she had to escape back to safer grounds, traveling outside hiding in sheds in winter, wearing just a shirt, she’d lost her baby to miscarriage). They all attained fairly high ranks, were known to have done exemplary work. During the culture revolution, they were accused of being far Right for various quite often arbitrary reasons. My grandfather’s family had been farmers who owned a few small pieces of land (5 mu), and even though he had ran away at 19 and never went back, he was deemed bourgeoisie no matter what he’d accomplished. They locked him in a dark cow shed for 2 years, with handcuffs so tight the scars went to his wristbone, and his kids were allowed to visit once per month. My other grandparents had similar stories. Some years later, all of them were released, reinstated. Some received formal apologies from the Party.

My parents grew up during the Culture revolution. They witnessed their parents in various stages of lock up, but were still full of fervor, voluntarily went to the rural villages among the first wave of educated youth following Mao’s call, and neither were granted party affiliation due to “tainted family background.” Years later, this continued to pop in random ways, subverting their career trajectory. This was through to the end of the 80s to early 90s.

My grandparents remained loyal to the Party until they died. They forgave the bad stuff. But if they didn’t, if other members of my family had differing thoughts and feelings as result, those are a legitimate response to what had happened. They’re part of the complex history of new China. There are people who are alive now who still have memories. Sometimes, when the repression gets higher, even for seemingly legitimate reasons, some people have ptsd.

The CPC isn’t an angel, and it made mistakes and people got hurt. The difference is, if we want to discuss material conditions, we should probably focus on: has the CPC changed since that time? Has it improved the lot of the Chinese people? Does it clearly demonstrate that it intends to continue to serve the interests of the people, promote equality and common prosperity and all the good things? So long as these remain true, the CPC is worthy to be supported, and held to high account. And not by pretending terrible things didn’t happen either, or that 60 years is all that long ago and everyone should all be fine now.

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This “underlying trend of things” is the dao, by the way :) Daoist philosophy and worldview, and Confucian philosophy and worldview–in addition to an awareness of history–still deeply underly Chinese thought and society. The way Judeo-Christian philosophy underlying the West. It’s part of what accounts for the “with Chinese characteristics”.

I’m not surprised to hear that. I understand that a quite large chunk of the costs they listed for this water release program is actually, when parsed, the cost for the PR campaign to make it all seem aboveboard and acceptable.

This is water that actually touched the exposed core from Fukushima during the disaster, and not the typical water used to cool nuclear cores as had been released for 60 years.

The release is extremely controversial in Asia, there have been riots and sit-in’s in Japan and Korea, and accusation of receiving bribes for the organization that testified as to the radioactivity. The price of salt in Korea is inflating as well (people are hording fearing future salt will be contaminated). Korea has set up a program to inspect radioactivity every two months, at 10 potential contact points, despite saying they’re OK with the release. Japan has refused all requests for inspection of their treatment methods, nor fully released the details.

This event has been really downplayed in all the English media I’ve seen, while highlighting China’s response as though it alone is being hysterical. Some analyst have speculated that this might have been one of the items Japan requested in the recent meeting with Korea and US at Camp David.