This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Look, maybe the problem is that a lack of education is responsible for my ignorance of american attempts to restrict chinese economic growth. But if it is... what history lesson am I missing? As far as I remember, the rough chain of events was, WW2 -> chicoms defeat republican china -> korean war (attempt to constrain china's hard power, not economic power) -> sino-soviet split (leading to us/china rapproachment) -> vietnam war (again, not an attempt to restrain china's economic power specifically) -> nixon goes to china -> US/chinese economic alignment (including chinese stealing american IP) -> modern worsening of relations. Did I miss america backstabbing china industrially during the sino-soviet split?
I don't think it's a lack of education. Until very recently there was no reason or incentive for Americans to care about what the Chinese think. And until now there's been no reason for American media or policy wonks to represent Chinese perspectives.
From 1949 until Nixon, the US maintained a comprehensive embargo on China (through CoCOM/CHINCOM, which is even stricter than against the Soviets). You can frame that as anti-communism and constraining hard power, but it absolutely hurt and was meant to hurt the Chinese economy, which was already reeling from internal mismanagement and near-total isolation from the productive world. It's hard to imagine a country acting militarily against another without also acting economically, right? I'm not assigning blame here, because China did align with the Soviets.
A few things worth noting in this timeline.
There is a genuine window of collaboration, after Nixon and most notably during the Reagan era.
In 1989 after Tiananmen the US and the west placed comprehensive sanctions against China. The US suspended military sales, blocked World Bank loans to China, and imposed restrictions on technology transfer. Some of these were never fully lifted to start with.
In 1996, CoCOM, a Cold War era economical sanction against the eastern bloc, was succeeded by the Wassenaar Arrangement, which continues to prohibit a wide range of goods and technology sales to China. So even during the period of supposed "economic alignment," the US and its allies maintained significant restrictions on technology transfer. And there are the Cox Report followed by the Wolf Amendment, which China sees as baseless.
It's also important to consider the reasons the US gives for sanctioning China, usually framed around "dual-use technologies" and "human rights abuses." Especially given how the current administration behaves, it is very difficult for us to believe that these measures are genuinely motivated by concern for human rights in China, and even if a fraction of the American policy makers did genuinely believe that, I think they're usually carrying water for the hawkish Cold War types still. They are far more easily read as a hypocritical use of human rights to justify economic encirclement. And also what exactly do Americans want China to do to lift those sanctions? Regime change is off the table, there is a period (2000-2010s) where there is genuine improvement on the human rights front, does that lift the sanctions? My reading is that nothing can result in lifting the sanctions because sanction is the point.
And one cannot expect the other party to overlook outright provocations even if not economic, most importantly US arms sales to Taiwan, especially in the period surrounding the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. For added context: during that period the US Congress and the State Department were sending contradictory signals, which is part of why I've argued that the current worsening of relations is often an extension of domestic politics. In this case, it was the active sabotage of executive branch policy by the opposition party in Congress. One example here:
Edit: and this soured the relationship from the very beginning. Another example of the president's policy being sabotaged by opposition.
Things like this happens multiple times and I don't want to list them all. Just to show you that from the Chinese perspective it is difficult to trust the Americans, because when you negotiate with Americans you cannot guarantee that the other branches of the government, or the next government, will honor their promises. I think Iran understands that pretty well by now.
Again I think this particular practice of finding out who shoot first is unproductive. I think for China and the US, we're roughly even. And more importantly moving on is to find common ground and collaborate, which I think has great potentials.
I'll concede this argument, thank you for the history lesson and for citing your sources.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link