I used to live 2 street across from the new consulate in Adelaide. Apparently the other day a group of neighbours where talking to a journalist in front of the consulate and a CCP offical came out and asked them if the have permission to speak there.....
I am amazed at how the CCP is turning even quiet suburbs against them.
Bill I still think my acronym of MoMSV is better (minions of marvel super villain) is better than WW or a Xjdtw (Xi Jinping Diplomatic Thought Warriors).
It sounds better and in my view expresses the effect they have on the western public.
The Global Times editorial on MEPs ‘blackmailing’ China over CAI reminds me of Brexiteers’ misunderstanding of the EU.
1. The European Parliament not only has the right to approve or disapprove the investment agreement, it *has* to approve in order for the EU side to to ratify any treaty.
2. This is a EU ‘competence’, so there is no need to go ‘back’ to the 27 member states and achieve consensus on giving up the investment agreement. The EP can decide all by itself to vote down the CAI. Therefore the EP is an independent actor that you need to keep on your good side regardless of what national governments think.
Moreover, the European Parliament is generally dominated by Europeanists who are in favour of greater EU integration and think that that they as the representatives of the European Peoples ought to be as important as the US Congress. Sadly they are often ignored.
Now, however, China is giving them the chance of a lifetime to shine in a gripping struggle of geopolitics and morality. For once, cameras might actually turn up. The MEPs will relish this. Have fun!
If I were any of these companies, or possible Olympic sponsors -- please may the games be seriously boycotted -- I would be wiping the dust off my feet with respect to the Chinese market. I mean, why go through moral contortionist acts simply to placate the children of Zhongnanhai? It isn't as though they're going to go out of business.
From China Digital Times, a pleasant take on all this:
The post is a salient example of state media’s attempt to co-opt the language of fandom and the internet to support nationalist causes [i.e., Nike, etc.]. Commentators quickly took to poking “low-level red, high-level black” fun at the nearly nonsensical phrase. “YUEJIPENGCI” is a pinyin rendition of the slang term 越级碰瓷 yuèjí pèngcí—approximately “out of their league attention-seekers”—used to criticize celebrities in China’s fandom culture. (The term is derived from 碰瓷 pèngcí, literally “porcelain bumping,” which refers to fraud involving injury feigned or deliberately incurred by the supposed victim. China Law Translate’s Jeremy Daum has suggested “eggshell extortion” as an English translation in that context.) CDT Chinese editors collected tongue-in-cheek commentary from the internet. CDT English’s abbreviated translation:
@chalibulang: Word of the day: stop YUEJIPENGCI—if you study English with the CYL, a 5/5 on the TOEFL isn’t a dream!”
@yuanqisongshuzhuanshengban: I stared at YUEJIPENGCI for half the day before I realized it was supposed to be “越级碰瓷“
@Straw32berry: I’ve long known “pengci” to be when elderly people scam those who help them up after “falls.” This is a revealing look at our society’s terrible shortcomings in taking care of the elderly. Even if solely focused on the textual use of the word, meaning porcelain, it’s also a speciality word. Does the entire globe have a “pengci” mindset? Can foreigners understand this post?
@mrrabbitorz: Xi Jinping Thought on English with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era
@doushaxiaogou: A state media, I’ve got to say I’m speechless. [Chinese]
...except of course many of these companies probably WOULD go out of business if the Chinese market is abandoned (or perhaps more accurately, abandoned them). The size, growth, and potential of the Chinese market is literally unmatchable for many companies and industries, and there are plenty of Chinese domestic competitors and other, less scrupulous companies from elsewhere in the world dying to take market share. You can fairly criticize these companies for valuing profits over human rights, and mock them for putting themselves into this nasty position, but at that point the criticism is extending beyond China, basically about capitalism and globalization itself. For these companies, living in the moment, most of them literally cannot extricate themselves out of this dilemma without ruining themselves, and telling them to just "dust off their feet" is not economically tenable.
As for the whole thing about state media pulling a "Hey how do you fellow teens", I don't have much of a comment, except to say that verisimilitude is a hard thing to pull off even in democratic societies, and that even so people who aren't affected by the nationalist prodding are usually in the minority.
I am currently reading Churchill's account of World War 2. In the first volume, The Gathering Storm, he points to many of the very same economic arguments being made now with respect to China that Britain, France, Sweden, and the United States made with respect to doing business with Nazi Germany in the run-up to the war: doing business with Nazi Germany was, well, good for business. We know where this led. My hope is that out there somewhere are those individuals/organizations who are expert in international/global finance and who may see all this as an opportunity, that is, how to assist companies leave the China/HK market without ruining themselves. The global economy should allow for this. Come what may, if we in the West and elsewhere continuously point to and critique the Faustian bargain that many Chinese make with the CCP -- give us prosperity and we will give you are hearts, minds, and souls -- companies doing business there shouldn't be insulated from the same sort of critique and criticism.
I used to live 2 street across from the new consulate in Adelaide. Apparently the other day a group of neighbours where talking to a journalist in front of the consulate and a CCP offical came out and asked them if the have permission to speak there.....
I am amazed at how the CCP is turning even quiet suburbs against them.
Bill I still think my acronym of MoMSV is better (minions of marvel super villain) is better than WW or a Xjdtw (Xi Jinping Diplomatic Thought Warriors).
It sounds better and in my view expresses the effect they have on the western public.
The Global Times editorial on MEPs ‘blackmailing’ China over CAI reminds me of Brexiteers’ misunderstanding of the EU.
1. The European Parliament not only has the right to approve or disapprove the investment agreement, it *has* to approve in order for the EU side to to ratify any treaty.
2. This is a EU ‘competence’, so there is no need to go ‘back’ to the 27 member states and achieve consensus on giving up the investment agreement. The EP can decide all by itself to vote down the CAI. Therefore the EP is an independent actor that you need to keep on your good side regardless of what national governments think.
Moreover, the European Parliament is generally dominated by Europeanists who are in favour of greater EU integration and think that that they as the representatives of the European Peoples ought to be as important as the US Congress. Sadly they are often ignored.
Now, however, China is giving them the chance of a lifetime to shine in a gripping struggle of geopolitics and morality. For once, cameras might actually turn up. The MEPs will relish this. Have fun!
If I were any of these companies, or possible Olympic sponsors -- please may the games be seriously boycotted -- I would be wiping the dust off my feet with respect to the Chinese market. I mean, why go through moral contortionist acts simply to placate the children of Zhongnanhai? It isn't as though they're going to go out of business.
From China Digital Times, a pleasant take on all this:
The post is a salient example of state media’s attempt to co-opt the language of fandom and the internet to support nationalist causes [i.e., Nike, etc.]. Commentators quickly took to poking “low-level red, high-level black” fun at the nearly nonsensical phrase. “YUEJIPENGCI” is a pinyin rendition of the slang term 越级碰瓷 yuèjí pèngcí—approximately “out of their league attention-seekers”—used to criticize celebrities in China’s fandom culture. (The term is derived from 碰瓷 pèngcí, literally “porcelain bumping,” which refers to fraud involving injury feigned or deliberately incurred by the supposed victim. China Law Translate’s Jeremy Daum has suggested “eggshell extortion” as an English translation in that context.) CDT Chinese editors collected tongue-in-cheek commentary from the internet. CDT English’s abbreviated translation:
@chalibulang: Word of the day: stop YUEJIPENGCI—if you study English with the CYL, a 5/5 on the TOEFL isn’t a dream!”
@yuanqisongshuzhuanshengban: I stared at YUEJIPENGCI for half the day before I realized it was supposed to be “越级碰瓷“
@Straw32berry: I’ve long known “pengci” to be when elderly people scam those who help them up after “falls.” This is a revealing look at our society’s terrible shortcomings in taking care of the elderly. Even if solely focused on the textual use of the word, meaning porcelain, it’s also a speciality word. Does the entire globe have a “pengci” mindset? Can foreigners understand this post?
@mrrabbitorz: Xi Jinping Thought on English with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era
@doushaxiaogou: A state media, I’ve got to say I’m speechless. [Chinese]
...except of course many of these companies probably WOULD go out of business if the Chinese market is abandoned (or perhaps more accurately, abandoned them). The size, growth, and potential of the Chinese market is literally unmatchable for many companies and industries, and there are plenty of Chinese domestic competitors and other, less scrupulous companies from elsewhere in the world dying to take market share. You can fairly criticize these companies for valuing profits over human rights, and mock them for putting themselves into this nasty position, but at that point the criticism is extending beyond China, basically about capitalism and globalization itself. For these companies, living in the moment, most of them literally cannot extricate themselves out of this dilemma without ruining themselves, and telling them to just "dust off their feet" is not economically tenable.
As for the whole thing about state media pulling a "Hey how do you fellow teens", I don't have much of a comment, except to say that verisimilitude is a hard thing to pull off even in democratic societies, and that even so people who aren't affected by the nationalist prodding are usually in the minority.
I am currently reading Churchill's account of World War 2. In the first volume, The Gathering Storm, he points to many of the very same economic arguments being made now with respect to China that Britain, France, Sweden, and the United States made with respect to doing business with Nazi Germany in the run-up to the war: doing business with Nazi Germany was, well, good for business. We know where this led. My hope is that out there somewhere are those individuals/organizations who are expert in international/global finance and who may see all this as an opportunity, that is, how to assist companies leave the China/HK market without ruining themselves. The global economy should allow for this. Come what may, if we in the West and elsewhere continuously point to and critique the Faustian bargain that many Chinese make with the CCP -- give us prosperity and we will give you are hearts, minds, and souls -- companies doing business there shouldn't be insulated from the same sort of critique and criticism.