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  1. #2151
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    Must be a strange cloistered environment you English teachers exist in, if you didn't already know that for a fact.

  2. #2152
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    ^ Dude.

    Me? An English teacher? Nope. Not a missionary, either.

    Just lucky enough to live in Thailand what is nearly half of my adult life and I am pretty f’n old. My best friends are Thai and Sino-Thai who have intermarried and have family members who intermarry. I am around people who have intermarried every day when I go to the market or food stalls. They are not necessarily wealthy people.

    I posit you are the one who has lived a cloistered life.

  3. #2153
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    OK kitty, sorry (i thought you wuz a TEFLer). I was married to a HK Chinese myself you know. Yes, there is a stigma- but it does happen. It's not only a Chinese thang either, nudge wink.

  4. #2154
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    "You'd better learn to like them, that's what I say". The waiters never are rude.

  5. #2155
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    It's quite obvious to all who have lived and worked in Thailand that inter-marriage isn't uncommon . . . what is uncommon is marrying outside the social status.



    Hongkies don't like mainlanders, Taiwanese don't like mainlanders, Singaporeans don't like mainlanders, Malaysians don't like mainlanders etc etc etc.

    No one does.
    Exactly.

  6. #2156
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    OK kitty, sorry (i thought you wuz a TEFLer).
    Perhaps she's been a TEFLer for a really long time.

    Eh Misskit?


  7. #2157
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    It doesn't matter. I gave up baiting TEFLers long ago (cheap shot). If they do a decent job, they're fine by me.

  8. #2158
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    ^^You wanna make me cuss?

  9. #2159
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    ^^You wanna make me cuss?
    Heheh

  10. #2160
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Long-awaited scene between China and the US gives the world relief: Global Times editorial

    By Global Times Published: Nov 15, 2022 01:29 AM


    "On Monday afternoon local time, Chinese President Xi Jinping had a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Bali, Indonesia. The scene of the two leaders shaking hands and smiling before the official meeting was sensitively captured by the global media and quickly spread around the world via internet. This long-awaited scene between China and the US has timely relaxed and comforted the world's tense emotions amid various crises and challenges. And it will be freeze-framed in a crucial place in the history of China-US relations.

    The international community generally expects China and the US to handle their relations well. This expectation is reflected in the international public opinion's scrutiny of every detail of the meeting between the two leaders, and their hope to find positive signs from it. It can be seen that everyone's feelings are similar. China-US relations have fallen to a low point since the establishment of diplomatic relations, and many people worry that China and the US will have a "new Cold War." The severe consequences of a possible military conflict between China and the US have made the international community filled with concerns. Under such circumstances, the fact that the heads of state of China and the US can sit together and talk candidly is a positive signal to the outside world, whatever they have talked about. This is a general tone of international media reports on this meeting.

    The meeting, which attracted worldwide attention, lasted 3 hours and 12 minutes. The two heads of state had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on strategic issues in China-US relations and major global and regional issues. Both sides expressed the basic willingness to engage in dialogue rather than confrontation, and win-win cooperation rather than zero-sum competition.

    President Xi profoundly pointed out the three layers of common interests between China and the US. It is in our mutual and fundamental interest to prevent conflict and confrontation and achieve peaceful coexistence. It is in our mutual interest to benefit from each other's development. It is also in our mutual interest to promote post-COVID global recovery, tackle climate change and resolve regional issues through China-US coordination and cooperation. "Under the current circumstances, China and the US share more, not less, common interests."

    Quite a few public opinions have noticed that the venue for this meeting is the Chinese delegation's residence in Bali, and the hotel where the US delegation is staying is about 10 minutes' drive away. Furthermore, this meeting was proposed by the US. In fact, it is not difficult to find that each time the continuous deterioration of China-US relations happens, it is due to the unilateral provocation by the US.

    As the saying goes, "whoever starts the trouble should end it." Only if the US takes the right attitude and practical actions can China-US relations return to the right track.

    During the meeting, US President Biden expanded the previous "Five Noes" commitment made by the US leadership

    (i.e. to not seek a new Cold War; to not seek to change China's system; that the revitalization of its alliances won't be against China; to not support "Taiwan independence"; to not look for conflict with China) and proposed that the US respects China's system, and does not seek to change it; the US does not seek a new Cold War, does not seek to revitalize alliances against China, does not support "Taiwan independence," does not support "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan," and has no intention to have a conflict with China; the US side has no intention to seek "decoupling" from China, to halt China's economic development, or to contain China.

    We hope that the US can implement President Biden's commitment instead of always saying one thing and doing another. This is both about sincerity and integrity.

    China-US relations cannot deteriorate any further. In dealing with the huge and complicated bilateral relationship, it is impossible to solve all problems with just one meeting.

    However, the meeting between the two heads of state in Bali showed that the two major powers still have many common views, thus providing more space and possibilities for the two sides to further properly manage divergences on specific issues and promote mutually beneficial cooperation.

    During the meeting, the two heads of state instructed the working teams of the two sides to follow up and implement the important consensus reached in a timely manner, and take concrete actions to push China-US relations back to the track of stable development. This is undoubtedly worth expectation for the two countries and the world.

    We hope that the conclusion of this meeting will become a new starting point for broader communication between China and the US, as well as a starting point for the two to seek pragmatic cooperation through communication. China maintains continuity and stability in its US policy, and has always called on the US to meet China halfway, which is not only in the fundamental interests of the two countries and the two peoples, but also the common expectation of the international community. The goal of handling China-US relations well should not only be to avoid conflicts."


    Long-awaited scene between China and the US gives the world relief: Global Times editorial - Global Times

    Trust and verify, who believes the current POTUS's script.
    A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.

  11. #2161
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    who believes the current POTUS's script.
    A lot more people than believe Mr. Shithole's torrent of bullshit.

  12. #2162
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Talking of his torrent of bullshit, I'm starting to think he's as thick as sabang.


    Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the world to avoid “weaponising” food and energy as the war in Ukraine and its economic fallout topped the agenda at the G20 leaders' summit in Bali.
    I wonder if someone will quietly explain to him who is blackmailing the west with fuel and grain supplies?

    I'd be happy to do it.

    My advice would begin with "Oi, c u n t".
    The next post may be brought to you by my little bitch Spamdreth

  13. #2163
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by harrybarracuda View Post
    Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the world to avoid “weaponising” food and energy as the war in Ukraine and its economic fallout topped the agenda at the G20 leaders' summit in Bali.
    An actual link to your source would help your statement's validity.

  14. #2164
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by OhOh View Post
    An actual link to your source would help your statement's validity.
    This is Speakers.

    But of course there is this wonderful tool called Google.

    But you just stick your fingers in your ears and whinge as usual, no-one cares.

  15. #2165
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Residents ‘revolt’ over oppressive Covid lockdowns in China’s Guangzhou



    Residents under Covid lockdown in China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou have torn down barriers meant to confine them to their homes, taking to the streets in defiance of strictly enforced local orders, according to video and images circulating on social media.


    Some of the images show large crowds cheering and surging across toppled barriers and filling streets after dark in the city’s Haizhu district, which has been under an increasingly restrictive lockdown since November 5, as the epicenter of the city’s ongoing Covid outbreak.


    The clanging sound of metal barriers falling reverberates across the neighborhood and mingles with cheers in the footage, in scenes multiple social media users said took place late Monday evening on district streets.


    In one video, Covid workers in protective medical wear can be seen standing on the sidelines as barriers fall, while trying to speak with people on the streets. “They’re revolting,” a woman’s voice is heard saying in the background of one of the videos. CNN has geolocated the images to Haizhu district, but could not independently confirm them.


    It is not clear how many people were involved in the protest, or how long it lasted. Related posts were swiftly scrubbed from the Chinese internet by censors.


    When CNN reached the phone line of the Haizhu District government office, a phone operator said that the area was still “largely closed off”.


    When asked whether protests took place in recent days, the operator declined to answer.


    The public protest – an exceedingly rare event in China, where authorities keep tight control over dissent – appears as yet another sign of the mounting public anger and desperation over the government’s stringent zero-Covid policies.


    The scenes in Guangzhou, which reported over 5,100 new Covid cases on Tuesday – the vast majority asymptomatic – come as Beijing’s unrelenting drive to stamp out the spread of the virus faces questions of sustainability, amid fast-spreading new variants.

    MORE/VIDEO China zero-Covid: Guangzhou residents '''revolt''' over oppressive lockdowns | CNN

  16. #2166
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    Residents ‘revolt’ over oppressive Covid lockdowns in China’s Guangzhou
    Reports suggest those protesting are mainly migrant workers.They are on hourly rates, so if they cannot work they don't get paid, and they are far from their families. Hard for them.

  17. #2167
    Thailand Expat OhOh's Avatar
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    Chinese, Indonesian presidents witness Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway trial run

    Last edited by OhOh; 17-11-2022 at 10:10 PM.

  18. #2168
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    Secret of the success of China's democracy

    The resignation of Liz Truss as British prime minister after only 44 days in office and the appointment of Rishi Sunak as the new prime minister, the third in two months, show inability of UK-style democracy to ensure political stability. The same is true for US-style democracy, but not to such an extent.

    Western democracy is a club for the rich, based on party politics. Western polities' argument is that the grassroots can vote to choose their representatives in parliament, not the country's leader. And although the constituents can protest against government policies, such protests often fall on deaf ears because the politicians are too busy holding onto their positions of power.

    Truss's downfall came about due to her plans to lower the tax burden on multi-million-pound corporations and individuals, hoping for "trickle-down economics" to help the poor. But the critics cried foul, saying the plan allows the rich to get richer and pushes the poor deeper into poverty.

    In the United States, top politicians (including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi) are all millionaires. They care little about their constituents despite the country's poverty rate reaching 11.7 percent, higher than the world average of 10.1 percent, and instead keep on printing currency bills to fight unnecessary, unjust wars across the world. Drug addiction and mass shootings, too, plague the administration as it concentrates its efforts on foreign, not domestic, policies.

    China, on the other hand, has eradicated absolute poverty, the only major country to do so. It has improved the quality of life of its 1.4 billion people. And by doing so, it has also improved the living environment including land development, transportation connectivity, clean energy generation including through hydroelectricity stations. China has also taken measures to ensure internet services reach even the most remote villages. This is the result of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.

    In the West, politics is not about the welfare of the constituents, but more about survival in power or gaining power by disagreeing with everything the incumbent government does or proposes. Democracy, as seen by the West, is power in chaos. Democracy, as seen by China, is people's power, with the opinions of all sections of society including the grassroots taken into consideration before finalizing a law or a measure.

    What the West refuses to acknowledge is all citizens of the People's Republic of China who have reached the age of 18 have the right to vote and stand for election. They can vote to choose the deputies at town- and county- levels. And the deputies to local people's congresses, elected by citizens, vote to choose deputies at a higher-level. This is somewhat akin to the democratic voting systems in the UK, the US and other Western jurisdictions where eligible voters choose their members of congress or parliament, who in turn vote to choose the country's leadership.

    In China, the word for democracy is minzhu, which literally translates to "people govern themselves". And being such a large and diverse country, China also allows for voting among ethnic constituents.

    President Xi Jinping has described this system as one that puts people first, makes them responsible citizens and helps them reap the benefits of good governance.

    American Sinologist Josef Gregory Mahoney, a professor of politics and international relations and the director of International Graduate Program in Politics at East China Normal University (Shanghai), wrote in an op-ed on CGTN that Western democracies, including the US, have increasingly showed their inability to put people first, have failed to ensure or advance basic human rights at home and instead have become "entrenched in systemic chokepoints, and have been unable to move past historic foundations of oppression and exploitation, both at home and abroad".

    Policy-making in China is not confined to politicians, as in the West, but also includes the grassroots people. That the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference National Committee is the country's top political advisory body fully demonstrates the features and advantages of China's socialist democracy by advocating broad consultation in decision-making and problem-solving.

    Academic studies show policy choices established by public consultation appear to be closely aligned with public opinion.

    A policy change in China is a long-drawn-out process due to the extent of public consultations, which trickles down from the top to the regional, provincial, city, town and village level. The process taps into individuals' thoughts and needs and is not hampered by political or organizational input as witnessed in the West where politicians' ideas and decisions prevail.

    With the advent of modern technology, the Chinese government has increasingly utilized online consultation as a means of providing citizens with opportunities to give feedback on draft laws and regulations. Indeed, online consultation has become an instrument of governance reform, which the CPPCC has embraced as a means of cultivating popular support.

    As Xi has said, the CPPCC is a great political consultative system created by the Communist Party of China. It encompasses everyone irrespective of party affiliation, all people's organizations and ethnic groups from all walks of life, in order to advance socialist consultative democracy.

    The author is a PR consultant and veteran journalist. The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

    Secret of the success of China's democracy - Opinion - Chinadaily.com.cn

  19. #2169
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    Foreign direct investment into China expands

    The actual use of foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland expanded 14.4 percent on a yearly basis to 1.09 trillion yuan between January and October of this year, said the Ministry of Commerce on Thursday.

    In US dollar terms, the inflow soared 17.4 percent from the same period of last year to $168.34 billion, according to the ministry.
    The service sector received 798.84 billion yuan of foreign investment in the first ten months, up 4.8 percent year-on-year.

    High-tech industries saw a rapid FDI increase of 31.7 percent during this period. Specifically, foreign investment in high-tech manufacturing rose 57.2 percent, while in the high-tech service sector it jumped 25 percent.

    In the meantime, investment from the Republic of Korea, Germany and the United Kingdom, climbed by 106.2 percent, 95.8 percent and 40.1 percent, year-on-year, respectively.

    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202211/17/WS6375e4e3a31049175432a595.html


    One apparent effect of the deindustrialisation of Germany caused by the Ukraine war, is that German FDI into China is booming.

  20. #2170
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    ^ Well it looks like Chinas GDP may not overtake the US this decade after all. Covid policy, mainly. Anyhow, Whoosh-



    Respected American journalist demolishes Biden’s approach to China

    By Patrick Lawrence
    Nov 19, 2022


    I’ve given up being amazed at how stupidly the Biden administration conducts its diplomacy with China and, by extension, Asia altogether. I spend my time now being amazed at how stupid these people assume the Chinese and other Asians to be.

    Nearly halfway through his term in office — and let us hope there is not another after this one — the man from Scranton finally met Chinese President Xi Jinping Monday to discuss the single most important relationship between any two nations anywhere in the world.

    This first face-to-face encounter since Joe Biden began his presidency comes after nearly two years of diplomatic drift during which the U.S. has escalated the threat of open conflict, incessantly provoked the Chinese on the Taiwan question and the administration’s bench of incompetents makes one mess after another. All the while Beijing has been consolidating an extensive range of ties with non–Western nations in the declared cause of a new world order.

    I do not see that anything of moment got done when Biden and Xi met just prior to the Group of 20 session in Bali this week. A great deal could have been accomplished, of course, given the worsening state of the bilateral relationship, but Biden proved once again not up to it. He seems to have figured the Chinese side would be too stupid to notice that he and his administration are effectively paralysed, a herd of deer caught in headlights.

    Our moment calls upon American statesmen and stateswomen to act imaginatively, creatively, even courageously in response to a new era and new geopolitical circumstances. But those sailing the American ship of state, from the president on down, have neither imagination nor creativity nor courage. All they can do is reiterate past positions while expecting the other side to respond differently.

    This is what Xi got in Bali on Monday. Nothing more. Nothing has changed, nothing of consequence has moved forward.

    It was easy enough to see this pointlessness coming, this remove from reality, as Biden and his people advertised the Bali summit last week. America proposes to “build a floor in the relationship,” officials declared. The object of the encounter was to “set expectations.” The two sides need to “draw red lines,” Biden said in a press conference last Wednesday, “and determine whether or not they” —China’s and Washington’s red lines — “conflict with one another. And if they do, how to resolve it and how to work it out.”

    Exhausted Rhetoric

    What in these various remarks is there to hold onto, what of constructive substance did the U.S. side propose to get done in Bali? It is all sponge, exhausted rhetoric, a continued commitment to avoid addressing the Sino–U.S. relationship seriously.

    This is what I mean by paralysis. American officials have nothing to say when they speak across the Pacific, and therefore say nothing in the cotton-wool language of obfuscation. The diplomacy of no diplomacy, as I have previously called it.

    Straight talk — always cover a shortcoming by proclaiming it a strength — was another running theme in the run-up. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said at a presser last Thursday: “The president will get to sit in the same room with Xi Jinping, be direct and straightforward with him as he always is, and expect the same in return from Xi.” I love the “as he always is.”

    And then the Big Guy, as Hunter Biden called his Pop when doling out the bribes during the latter’s vice-presidency, said: “I know Xi Jinping…. I’ve always had straightforward discussions with him….We have very little misunderstanding. We just got to figure out what the red lines are.”

    All this seems to have been calculated to convey the impression that there is a set of new problems between Beijing and Washington and Biden has arrived to resolve them.

    Say what? Refusing to put a floor in the Sino–American relationship has been the building block of U.S. policy since the Biden regime came to power in January 2021. China has since that day made its perfectly reasonable expectations clear and has drawn all the red lines it needs, only to see Washington ignore the expectations, the red lines and everything else the Chinese have had to say.

    As to Biden the straight talker, this gets to be a clown act. Do he and his people think the Chinese do not know they are dealing with an habitual liar, having been on the receiving end of many of Biden’s falsehoods and elisions — notably, but not only, on the Taiwan question?

    I’m not sure why any of this flimsy PR was necessary in the first place. At that press conference last Wednesday Biden asserted with evident righteousness that he would make “no fundamental concessions” to China on the Taiwan question. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…

    Xi was forthright, as always, when Taiwan came up. “The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China–U.S. relations and the first red line that must not be crossed in China–U.S. relations,” Xi said according to a Xinhua report. “Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese and China’s internal affair.”

    It doesn’t get much clearer, does it? And Biden?
    “Biden said he sought to assure Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan, which has for decades been to support both Beijing’s ‘One China’ stance and Taiwan’s military, had not changed,” Reuters reported from Nusa Dua, the Balinese town where the G–20 met Tuesday. “He said there was no need for a new Cold War.”

    It doesn’t get much foggier. Biden has stated four times since taking office that the U.S. will defend Taiwan militarily in the event of open conflict between the island and the mainland — a straight-ahead repudiation of Washington’s longstanding commitment to the One China principle. The U.S. now embarks on a major new program to increase military aid to Taiwan.

    Two-Front Cold War

    As to a new Cold War, we hear the same thing as regards Russia and the Ukraine conflict. It has been evident for many months that the U.S. is well along in waging a two-front Cold War, Ukraine and Taiwan its sharp forward edges.

    And then there is what the Chinese call the salami-slicing, a running series of small aggressions, none very large in itself, to inch away from One China toward de facto support for Taiwan’s independence. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s grandstanding visit to Taipei last summer is a case in point, even if it proved a very thick slice of salami.

    In this latter connection, the ideologically obsessed Sullivan took it upon himself to announce before the Biden–Xi summit that the administration intended to brief Taiwan officials about what was said in the talks. This is two things: another incremental move toward legitimising Taiwan’s standing as an independent state and, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry succinctly put it, an “egregious” violation of diplomatic protocol.

    It is impossible to imagine that Sullivan spoke without prior calculation. This is how Washington slices its salami.

    China’s Patience

    At this point you have to admire the Chinese side for their patience in the face of this tedium. They sit there, one diplomatic encounter after another, and listen courteously as Washington invites them not to believe what is right before their eyes.

    Biden’s message to Xi, such as we can speak of one, is by now familiar. Let’s cooperate on non-threatening matters such as climate change, compete in the economic and technology spheres, and face off as adversaries on national security and geopolitical questions — the South China Sea, Taiwan, nuclear stockpiles and so on.

    As noted previously in this space, Beijing has been clear from the Biden administration’s first days that it does not take this cake-and-eat-it talk the least bit seriously.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried this on a few months after Biden was inaugurated. Then Wendy Sherman, Blinken’s No. 2, tried it. Then John Kerry, as Biden’s top climate diplomat, tried it very briefly. All with the same result: a string of failures — some spectacular (Blinken and Sullivan in Alaska in March 2021), others “quiet disasters,” as Foreign Policy put it after Sherman’s talks in Tianjin a few months later.

    Now Biden has just tried the same thing, with a notable assist from Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary, who accompanied him to Bali.
    As noted some weeks ago, the U.S. has just imposed a range of new restrictions on U.S. technology exports explicitly intended — see Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo — to retard, if not block altogether, China’s development in high-technology sectors such as semiconductors. We have to assume this shameful act of industrial sabotage is what Biden and the policy cliques mean by competing on the economic side.

    Here is Yellen, in an interview with The New York Times last Saturday, on the new sanctions, and we’ll have to forgive the non-sentence:
    “I think stabilising the relationship and trying to get it on a better footing while recognising that we have a whole range of concerns, and we would like to address those…. They need to understand, for example, why we take actions. I know their concern, for example, about our policies of banning sales of advanced semiconductors. It’s important for us to explain why we’re doing things, how it’s delineated, that it’s not an attempt to completely paralyse China’s economy and stop its development.”

    No, not completely, just critically and mostly.

    In his post-summit remarks, Biden said he told Xi it was China’s responsibility to keep North Korea’s weapons programs in check and that if Beijing failed to do so the U.S. “would have to take certain actions that would be more defensive on our own behalf.” This is an altogether bizarre remark, but I detect a veiled intention in it — two, in fact.

    One, by assigning China responsibility for Pyongyang’s conduct, ridiculous on the face of it, Joe “Diplomacy First” Biden is weaselling out of any renewed effort to open talks with the North: It is all on you, Mr. Xi.

    Two, this position may be a screen — hard to say just yet—for what is already a major Pentagon program to increase the U.S. military presence in the western Pacific. The U.S. has used North Korea as an excuse in this way for many years, let us not forget.

    I don’t know how quiet or noisy this disaster will prove, but I am certain of the disaster part. China agreed to reopen lines of communications on climate matters and other such questions, which it had closed in response to the Pelosi visit. It is not nothing, but it is barely more.

    I do not know where in the proceedings this remark occurred, but I consider Xi had the last word:
    “History is the best textbook. We should take it as a mirror and let it guide the future…. A statesman should think about and know where to lead his country. He should also think about and know how to get along with other countries and the wider world.”

    Excellent stuff. After half a millennium of the Atlantic world’s dominance, the non–West lectures the West. It tells us just what time it is on history’s clock.
    —Research provided by Cara Marianna.


    Re published from Sheerpost.com Nov 19 2022 Original article from Consortium News Nov 17 2022

    Respected American journalist demolishes Biden’s approach to China - Pearls and Irritations

  21. #2171
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    Secret of the success of China's democracy


    etc.

  22. #2172
    Thailand Expat harrybarracuda's Avatar
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    We have to assume this shameful act of industrial sabotage is what Biden and the policy cliques mean by competing on the economic side.
    You've got to be a serious chinky brown noser to blatantly gloss over the chinkies egregious theft of other peoples' IP over decades and then accuse the US of "industrial sabotage" for wanting to do something about it.

    "Respected American journalist" hahahaha

  23. #2173
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    Qatar, China sign 27-year LNG deal as competition heats up

    Reuters -

    November 21, 2022 5:35 PM

    "DOHA: QatarEnergy has signed a 27-year deal to supply China’s Sinopec with liquefied natural gas (LNG), the longest such LNG agreement so far as volatile markets drive buyers to seek long-term deals. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, competition for LNG has become intense, with Europe in particular needing vast amounts to help replace Russian pipeline gas that used to make up almost 40% of the continent’s imports.

    “Today is an important milestone for the first sales and purchase agreement (SPA) for North Field East project, it is 4 million tonnes for 27 years to Sinopec of China,” QatarEnergy chief Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters in Doha, shortly before the deal signing.

    “It signifies long-term deals are here and important for both seller and buyer,” he said.

    The North Field is part of the world’s biggest gas field that Qatar shares with Iran, which calls its share South Pars.

    QatarEnergy earlier this year signed five deals for North Field East (NFE), the first and larger of the two-phase North Field expansion plan, which includes six LNG trains that will ramp up Qatar’s liquefaction capacity to 126 million tonnes per year by 2027 from 77 million.

    It later signed contracts with three partners for North Field South (NFS), the second phase of the expansion.

    Monday’s deal, confirmed by Sinopec, is the first supply deal to be announced for NFE.

    “We are very happy about this deal with Sinopec because we have had a long-term relationship in the past and this takes our relationship to new heights as we have a SPA that will last into the 2050s,” Kaabi said.

    Long-term supply

    Kaabi said negotiations with other buyers in China and Europe that want to have security of supply were ongoing.

    Qatar is already the world’s top LNG exporter and its North Field expansion project will boost that position and help guarantee long-term supplies of gas to Europe as the continent seeks alternatives to Russian flows.
    “I think the recent volatility has driven buyers to understand the importance of having long-term supply,” Kaabi said.

    He added negotiations for an equity stake in the Gulf country’s expansion project were ongoing with several entities.

    The supply contract is a key component for an integrated partnership in the NFE, Sinopec said in a statement, indicating it could be involved in stake negotiations.
    QatarEnergy has maintained a 75% stake overall in the expansion and could give up to a 5% stake from its holding to some buyers, Kaabi said.
    Sources told Reuters in June that China’s national oil majors were in advanced talks with Qatar to invest in NFE."

    Qatar, China sign 27-year LNG deal as competition heats up | Free Malaysia Today (FMT)

    Maybe Qatar have left over any for Germany 'arry.

  24. #2174
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    ^ Love his military uniform. At the first sound of an enemy rifle shot he'll be in his nuclear bunker faster than you can say coward.

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    Poor old Puffy, the hits just keep on coming.

    China discards Russian best engine from its Chengdu fighter

    China discards Russian best engine from its Chengdu fighter


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