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I've said before that I had stopped posting here because it's a purely American Affairs Discussion community and, for a non-American, those affairs are only instrumentally interesting due to their effects elsewhere, and they become less interesting as America recedes from the world stage. The silence on the ongoing global events reinforces my impressions both of the US and of this forum. It's a pity because in terms of the culture war, it's very significant. The Red Tribe basically won politically. Nowhere has this been made more obvious than at the yesterday's session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, that hive of globalists Alex Jones warned us all about. For decades, the narrative around these parts has been that Europe has lost its way, is Communist, is being demographically replaced etc, and only the Serious Big Brother across the Atlantic can steer the ship. Lately there's even talk that Europe is basically «over», and America is what remains of the West, and so the US must take direct stewardship over the imperiled land. For example, one of the justifications for the seizure of Greenland from a MAGA loyalist Scott Greer:
(Needless to say, every accusation is a confession; very soon, Scott Bessent EXPOSED Denmark's treatment of Greenland in front of millions! – according to some Floridian patriot. This propaganda is gaining steam in conservative sources that belong to the American influence network).
I've seen that the rumors of European death are very much exaggerated. Europe very much still exists. But the sensibility of the United States of America on the world stage is now one of openly admitted exceptionalism and essentialist superiority. We've seen the birth of an assertive Judeo-Christian civilization-state with Latin American characteristics, and it's clearly separate from what can be called «Western Civilization». The focal point of the rupture was of course Greenland again.
I mainly want to get the conversaton going so I'll just share some quotes without commentary.
Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce:
This is of course not so much Monroe/Donroe doctrine as invoking Light Unto the nations/Shining city upon a hill with some geopolitical dressing, only cruder, with more stick and less carrot than ever. The reactions are understandable.
Mark Carney, a long-term advisor to Justin Trudeau with all his disastrous policies, was projected to soundly lose the elections to Pierre Poilievre, a very US-style conservative self-identifying as a «simple goy from the prairies». What reversed their odds was Trump's tariff war on Canada plus endorsement of Pierre as his agent to make Canada the 51st state (Poilievre, being a simple goy but not insane, obviously denied any such intention).
Yesterday, Carney delivered a speech that I think ends the North American fraternal relationship and likely the entire post -WWII order. Some excerpts:
Others are saying similar stuff, have been for a while. Merz on the end of the Pax Americana, Macron obviously.
The engagement with China is a common theme, spearheaded by Carney. His partnership with China in particular is prompting Americans to fantasize of seizing Alberta. Maybe that'll happen too.
You really should follow the WEF content on your own to form an opinion though.
The other day @TiltingGambit said:
I am not sure who's going to be American ally in WWIII now. It's my impression that @TiltingGambit has been projecting, because he, as a true American, felt that there is nothing worth learning about affairs of barbarians in China, Europe or anywhere else. This is a very Qing-like attitude. Yes, there's significant consumption of MCU capeshit, we all write in English, Americans are the top content creators on Tiktok, I'm just not seeing how this translates into political loyalty.
So. The costs of winning the Culture War. Any takes on this?
Edit. I explain my focus on this topic, since many are very disappointed.
I am actually Chinese and China is nowhere as great as you think it is. 99% of what is written about China in English is narrative and lies, and about 85% of Chinese-language content about China is the same. So if you are a foreigner making your opinion on China's tightly controlled PR vs the open media of the West that has its laundry hanged out to dry, and siding with China, you're just as foolish as the pro-Soviet boosters in the NYT who didn't see the Holodomor.
I seem to recall one of our own being unfairly profiled as Israeli agent, but at this point, I have to ask. Are you an agent of the People's Republic of China, or have any relation to a corporation that does extensive business with them? Or are you some variant of Maoist Third Worldist?
Note that there's nothing wrong with being any of those things, but the pretense of being a neutral observer chuffing about American degeneracy is wearing thin. Please explain why you believe the communists in China are more trustworthy partners that the Americans.
No. You admit being Canadian, perhaps of Chinese ethnicity. Maybe a Taiwanese or a Hong Konger at that, given how you specify not getting into fights with «Mainland» Chinese here. And I do not know when you've last been to Mainland China and how long you've lived in Canada, but you write like an Indian, with the over-the-top emotive rhetorical flourish and confident pride in your eloquence that I have never seen a Mainland-educated person display in English (then again I could be accused of much the same). You might even believe this alone makes you better than them, you assimilated so well after all, and the Chinese are known for strong internal racism. However, I'll allow that you're probably a first-generation immigrant, seeing as how you attack fellow immigrants and give them this boomerish no-nonsense advice on fitting in. You are also not particularly informed about the conditions of either American or Chinese economy, given that we've seen a spectacular refutation of your June thesis («The American economy is not dependent on imports from China») here with the October MOFCOM Surprise that forced the US into a humiliating climbdown. I'd say >5 years since last stay in China. Right? The idea I'm seeing among people routinely doing business with China, the knowledge of Chinese way of life is completely obsolete within about 5 years.
More generally, I put extremely little faith in «I'm from X and here's the ugly truth» type takes, ironic as that is, given that I'm sometimes providing such opinions on Russia. Many people are dissatisfied in the condition of their nation; those are the Russians saying they're inept orcs and the frontline will crumble in two weeks, the Americans complaining of their intolerable wage slavery to the middle-class Shanghainese on Rednote, and of course the Chinese who've internalized the more charismatic white narrative about their inferiority, or just grew dismayed of the grift and striverism. But many Chinese including my friends in various walks of life and in different countries hold views opposite to yours; and many Chinese outside China are straightforwardly coping, starting with their patron saint Gordon Chang and the COVID refugee cohort that had accepted a permanent QoL hit in emigration and thus sustains itself with news of the coming Chinese collapse. Whereas most Chinese dissidents, in my experience, are straight up mentally ill (excluding eg. Ai Weiwei), and there's no talking to them. I've visited a local Falun Dafa branch, the food was okay, but my takeaway was «wow, if the MSS ran this thing, they'd find little to improve for the purposes of lulling the US into complacency». That's the nervous system of the overseas anti-CCP Chinese and much of the Western conservative media, their newspapers informing Republican policymaking – a hive of loudly insane religious freaks who couldn't cut it in China. It had put some things into perspective for me.
It's also quite condescending to assume that a foreigner, one from a former Communist country at that, is naively engaging with «tightly controlled PR». Your homeland's PR is hilariously tone-deaf and transparent; if the MSS or whatever were employing people like me, they'd get much further, but they treat propaganda as a sinecure for officials' failsons. My opinion is based on primary sources, not on «PR». I can literally see who's doing what, with what dependencies, with what labor, and the Chinese are doing about 50% of the interesting stuff in the world, delivering us the world that's moving forward twice as fast.
Mainly because the average quality of Americans and the Chinese doesn't matter so much – institutions that serve as the bottlenecks do. The CCP imposes some standards of competence and prosociality, as opposed to the American beauty pageant, and Xi in particular is like 3 standard deviations above Trump in personal integrity, which has effects downstream. Xi's ministers are humans, Trump's are weird hypebeasts; Xi's policies are motivated by long-term rational self-interests, Trump's by petty cruelty and delusions, therefore the Chinese in aggregate become more predictable and more reliable partners. This is trivially obvious to a neutral observer from going through their biographies and watching their actions, and actions of both countries, for several years.
If I were a Maoist Third Worldist, I would not be saying that China is not really Communist.
Ya know, it's really obnoxious to keep telling people what their ethno-nationalist origins are, and when corrected, double down and tell them "Well technically you may not be American/you may be Chinese but actually --"
Followed by a long-winded diatribe about how they're actually American or not-Chinese according to your abstruse rationalizations.
You've done this several times, which should have led to some degree of embarrassment and self-updating on your part, but instead has led you to dig in, become increasingly argumentative and stubborn, and predictably, led other people to respond to you in undesirable ways (such as the "ball-snipping" comment which, while I agree with the sentiment, isn't really the kind of discourse we want to encourage).
You have already reached KulakRevolt-levels of not-to-be-taken-seriously in your arguments, but that's fine, the Motte has always welcomed the most out-there posters with wild hot takes. It's kind of its purpose! You are not wrong that the community is heavily American in perspective and preoccupations (though it's hard to avoid since, you know, it is mostly Americans here) and getting your, ah, unique perspective is valuable. I say that without irony.
That said, you've also reached the Kulak stage of "I despise all you nerds and your worthless ignorant opinions so I'm going to dump my diatribes on you and get belligerent with people who argue with me."
So congratulations, you've temporarily achieved Main Character status in that most of the reports in the queue are of you or in response to you.
Choose one: you want to participate here and be civil, or you are too disgusted to be engage civilly here and you aren't going to waste time here anymore.
No. This is gaslighting plain and simple, so I won't read the rest of your screed. I'm tired of this nonsense. Ban me at least for a month, better permaban.
On the object level.
We have many Chinese and non-Chinese people here who have relevant fresh experience and diverse takes, eg here. He apparently doesn't have Chinese nationality, and it's not clear he's ever had it; more importantly not clear whether he's been there in any recent past, or indeed even once – I asked and he avoided the issue. That is obnoxious. He's opportunistically claiming to be "Chinese" in this chain to legitimize sweeping dismissive statements on what China is like addressed to a "foreigner", but ordinarily he says he's "Canadian", showing he's a foreigner himself. This is hypocrisy. He shares some psychodrama about [white] Canadian treatment of ethnic Chinese, which is irrelevant to the issue at hand – I have zero interest in his ethnic background or identity, we're talking about knowledge, not HBD and legacy. Han Chinese people do not have any essentialist property that allows them to be more insightful about China than any other "foreigner", that's my assertion. And you're trying to frame me as… well, whatever.
If you want a self-ban, request it by modmail, not in this petty fit.
Obnoxious. The word is obnoxious.
You are throwing a public tantrum. If you really want a ban, you can request it, but you will have to make it clear you are in fact formally requesting to be banned, not just by throwing a toddler-fit so you can exit claiming to be the wounded party. Your behavior so far got you a warning to chill out. You can of course also choose to be a more egregious jerk and force us to ban you, but that won't make you feel so self-righteous, now will it?
How would a formal request for a ban not be a toddler-fit in this framing? I am simply saying that I do not intend to change my behavior. You are offered to price it in and act accordingly.
I'm not a wounded party, I am simply correct and you are wrong, particularly in this case.
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