this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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I'm sure Xi is beyond having his feelings hurt by Biden, but just look at Bilken's reaction lmao.

Inviting a head of state to your country to publicly insult them is unacceptable anywhere, so this is only going to further tarnish the shitty reputation of American diplomacy.

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[–] [email protected] 109 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Biden's reason doesn't even make any sense

Well you see here jack he's the leader of a country with a totally different style of government than ours

Barely even paraphrasing lmfao this guy's brain is swiss cheese

[–] [email protected] 78 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ehh it kinda makes sense if you agree with the idea that liberals view any deviation from Western liberalism as ontologically wrong and evil. Just jarring to see it said out loud in a diplomatic setting.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 11 months ago

I agree but just because the quiet part is said out loud doesn't make it make any more sense lol

[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We are moving backwards from "Capitalism is a necessary evil because of human nature" to "Capitalism is the only good form of economy".

[–] [email protected] 43 points 11 months ago

Agreed. The swiss cheese holes have gotten to the tact and inhibition parts of his brain.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Seriously. Biden just outwardly saying his definition of dictator is 'leader not in exactly the same way as us' is really weird.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Look, he is. He's a dictator in the sense that he's a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that's based on a form of government totally different than ours,

May as well give the quote. Seems like, insofar as it has substance, it just circles back around to gommulism bad

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[–] [email protected] 93 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Trump would have handled this better, and I’m not joking.

[–] [email protected] 81 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Trump would wait at least a few days before calling Xi the leader of Hamas or some dumb shit.

So yeah, you're right.

[–] [email protected] 83 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Nah, Trump likes Xi. He’ll be all over the place about China, but on an individual level he can spot a winner, and he likes winners. He might even still call Xi a dictator, but he’d be like “and that’s good, because he’s a very smart man. Very smart. China is lucky to have him. Some of us aren’t so lucky, if you know what I mean.”

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

He called the leader of Egypt a dictator to his face, through a translator fwiw.

Edit: ok it actually wasn't to his face. He called Sisi his favorite dictator before he arrived to an event, in front of diplomatic staff from Egypt

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Trump or Biden? Equally possible. Trump meant it as a compliment, Biden because of brain rot.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 11 months ago

Hahah fair, no I'm talking trump on this one

[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago (1 children)

On one hand, getting called a dictator. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure Trump sees that as a compliment.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Egypt is our ally right? That means he probably is a dictator. It is a safe guess. I have no actual knowledge of the situation

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago

Yes, and absolutely

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago

well Trump's zero sum game everything is a negotiation attitude would genuinely help here.

he might think Xi is a dictator but he also wouldn't give a shit either way

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I think that means that America failed to get any concessions from China.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The one thing they seemed to get was resumption of direct military to military hotlines. Not sure how useful that's gonna be if they piss the Chinese side off though. Not hard to order the generals to pick up the phone, listen to the yank, then say "okay" and hang up.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

It's definitely useful for when the americans are doing their stupidly fucking dangerous freedom of navigation missions through chinese territory. During these missions the US ships have to turn off various monitoring equipment among other things. It's so fucking easy for one or the other side to misinterpret one another if they ever do something they're not expected to do in those situations, without communication they will default to assuming the worst and that's where it gets hairy, everyone starts shooting, and then everyone else in the region starts shooting because everyone is shooting. Launch after launch will happen because there's no de-escalation channel or way to just say "shit that was a mistake we're sorry" when something actually goes wrong.

Imagine when a ship gets spooked, does something unexpected, then some scrambled jets get shot down, then even more shit happens, and every single asset in the region just acts independently based on the information they have at hand (the ship/jets nearest to me just got blown up, we should release our payload into the target). It's a huge cascade.

Communication really matters to avoid this.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Conversely, if you know China isn't taking your calls, you have no choice but to avoid large provocations. I think refusing the back channels and forcing US foreign policy to be all out in the open was a good tactic.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (8 children)

You don't need to do large provocations for this cascade to occur. Freedom of navigation operations have the potential to spiral out of control extremely easily.

This video poses this scenario very well: https://youtu.be/vJXWJ-Px5tU

I don't necessarily agree with all the interpretations of effectiveness of weapons/missiles etc in this video, but as an example of how officers in charge of each of these assets will act independently on incomplete information about the situation it's a very realistic example of how this shit could cascade on a complete misunderstanding. The particularly interesting part of this begins at 6:00 but the lead up is important in establishing the list of assets in the region in the scenario. An emergency phonecall in this situation would have resulted in the US knowing "this is a mock attack as an exercise, not a real one" and the spark that lights this cascade of events would not have happened. But without that phonecall, the training exercise jets are shot down, and what follows is a cascade of events leading to devastating losses of both sides as every existing asset interprets the nearby events as existential and releases their full capabilities. Whether the interpretations of the effect of these jets/missiles are correct is not really relevant compared to understanding how this cascade could easily happen from routine exercises that happen regularly without a line of communication.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago

US FONOPS are actually insane. They broke the decades-old status quo that established the Taiwan Strait as Chinese territorial waters under the CPC-KMT consensus.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago

I heard they did get the Chinese to stop supplying the chemicals used to make fentanyl to Mexico. (as I understand it previously Chinese companies were selling chemicals that have legitimate and legal industrial uses in larger quantities than the legal market can support, similar to how American gun manufacturors make 40% more guns than the legal gun market can support)

[–] [email protected] 68 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Really think they're fucking up by reopening the military communications link. I guess China has to to show they're the reasonable party, but the US is just going to do what they were already doing. That is, ratcheting up tensions as much as possible whenever it suits them (pelosi fucking off to Taiwan for personal gain, that whole weather balloon embarrassment) then privately calling the PLA to say don't worry bro it's no biggie we promise. And then a month later doing it all again. I just don't see what China has to gain apart from the initial PR boost.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago (4 children)

that whole weather balloon embarrassment

speaking of that, even though the US has openly admitted that the balloon wasn't a surveillance device and didn't collect any data, just yesterday my local news station was still calling it a "spy balloon" lol

[–] [email protected] 47 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I've noticed that here too. It seems like the final stage of disinfo is for people to repeat the lie on their own without any outside influence. It's the same deal with the Uyghur thing - official government sources dropped the narrative ages ago, but you'll still hear it repeated as if it were historical fact from journalists, influencers, redditors, etc.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Russiagate was comprehensively debunked by years of bipartisan congressional investigations, and yet the idea that Vladimir Putin personally overthrew the United States government and will again unless militarily removed from power is still hegemonic among American liberals. 25 years of celebrating peaceful coexistence with the "triumph of liberal democracy" in Russia and overnight they're all Joe McCarthy swearing an eternal crusade against the hated Muscovite.

Rather than instant and comprehensive systems of brainwashing, I think this is better understood as licensing American settlers to unleash their preexisting white supremacist worldview onto a politically acceptable target. "Correcting the disinformation " doesn't eliminate the bigotry, because the disinformation didn't put it there. The "disinformation", even when they know it's bullshit, is just a social signal that they'll no longer be stigmatized for saying what they've always wanted to believe.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I couldn't agree more with that second paragraph. I think you'll enjoy this article very much https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/. All this propaganda just gives the settlers a veil to spew their hate from behind. Chuds don't really need it because they're chuds, but it gives the liberals an excuse to be just as disgusting - only they'll dress it up in smug, condescending language.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

That article is what I'm shamelessly regurgitating here. It really resonated with me, and now I see it everywhere.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Even the articles that came out confirming it was just a weather balloon referred to it as a "spy balloon" lmao.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Trying to reason with a narcissist is pointless

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The way he says this makes me think there's probably a whole school of thought in the establishment ghoul circles that revolves around wording things in specific ways that translators will soften or "interpret" in a way that makes them sound not as bad in alternate languages.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 58 points 11 months ago

"he is the leader of a communist country, anyways lets move on" thats what he said lmao, fucking children politics.

[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (1 children)

When they go low, we get high stalin-smokin

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Honestly not even mad, this is completely expected lol

[–] [email protected] 53 points 11 months ago

My guess is that as soon as he heard it, Xi leaned over to his aide and whispered "Looks like I owe you a beer" into their ear.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 11 months ago

begging Xi to clap back with "you could say the same about Biden, but you'd be wrong; he doesn't even run his country, the CEOs are the dictators"

[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago

xi-square-up The fuck you say about me?

sicko-wistful

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago

Xi: "that's nice sweetie"

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago

Damn, how do people face Biden in person and not vomit at the sight of his face

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago

One step forward, two steps back

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The video of Blinken shaking his head like “goddamnit” is pretty funny

[–] [email protected] 22 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The face of a man who knows he's about to work through the night because his boss just said something incredibly dumb.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago
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