"1.3 Billion Chinese About To Get “Trust Scores”" Topic

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Isn't that interesting!

I see a trend*, and sense a retightening of nooses around their poor necks by their Red overlords.

The dragon definitely is waking up. But is this, and the relentless military buildup we've been observing for a few years now, really preparation for the inevitable war of expansion and resources that many people and media in the West have been calling a ridiculous and inconceivable** fear-mongering concept for decades?
(Man, that was a long sentence, I'm out of breath).

Inquiring minds want to know … :)

Dan
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Sounds like a way to make sure everyone in China is thinking in the same 'approved' manner. Going to lose a lot of innovation that way.

I myself am wondering about what the Japanese at one
time called the 'Northern Resource Area'. It is
identified on maps as 'Siberia' and has mineral and
other wealth to be exploited.

Could all this focus on a potential US/China
confrontation in the Pacific be a shell game ?

China has openly prided itself that it has achieved as much as the US did in its day far quicker and without spending itself blue waging war across the globe.

At the same time China is very aware that it needs a modern military and the ability to project power.

It might be a little arrogant to assume that we are obvious target of some inevitable head-on confrontation. I doubt China has plans to subjugate the world. They need a military presence to put weight behind their economic plans.

As for the scoring system it's clear that for a brief period of the early 21st century the dictator was a dying breed, seeing our world becoming interconnected made it much harder for regimes to control people. But while the old guard has succumbed to globalization, a new generation has embraced it, they have discovered the power of things like social media and how it can be used to further their goals. The power of something like Facebook is so massive that creating a system that uses the same mechanisms to influence a population seems like Huxley's great fear come true :

"There is, of course, no reason why the new totalitarianisms should resemble the old. Government by clubs and firing squads, by artificial famine, mass imprisonment and mass deportation, is not merely inhumane (nobody cares much about that nowadays), it is demonstrably inefficient and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost. A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude."

Ed Mohrmann: "Could all this focus on a potential US/China confrontation in the Pacific be a shell game ?"

Interesting. I always felt that Iran and North Korea were the decoys and that our Western media played along with that hype perfectly, allowing the PRC to expand into the South China Sea and conduct other operations while everyone else was distracted by the puppet show.

So, while our media has everyone focused on what Iran and North Korea are doing, I always wonder how China is making the most of the convenient distraction. Specially when everyone else keeps telling us that China doesn't have any ambitious plans for world domination. :)

Dan
PS. When you trust someone you look where they point. When you don't, you look where they aren't pointing. I stopped trusting the "pointers" many years ago, specially when they are all in sync and not in competition. That's the scariest time.

Well its the probably the logical endpoint. Though what's most surprising is they are being so blatant about it!

Iran and NK are both proxy "wars". The real conflict has already started and it is aimed at China's weakest link, their econonmy which is very vulnerable.

It's not even that subtle or nefarious. "Follow the money" has always been the truest maxim for understanding motivations of nations and uber rich people invested in them.

Today's Medía is increasingly a "clickbait" funded industry. They will create headlines and Nooz stories that get the most clicks. Conspiracy theories of "total control" of the world have nothing to do with reality.

Total world domination? Lol. Let's hope not.

But if PRC feels it's gotten away free with annexing the South China Sea*, you bet the countries there should be extremely nervous. Why? Because they know full well that's not the end of it. Not even close.

ROUWtPatchBehindTheSofa: "Though what's most surprising is they are being so blatant about it!"

Exactly. They know no one dares to stop anything they want to, except potentially their own population. So they're re-consolidating their hold on them again before the next burst. Then they'll be unstoppable.

Also, at some point, we need to stop thinking that other countries need to spend our kind of money to carry out their wars of expansion. Some people have been conditioned to living on a shoestring and can fight with much less than we do. Much less.

Some countries would have called the Great Depression something else … Monday. I first realized that as a kid overseas, when I mentioned the Depression and someone asked me how many tens of millions of Americans had died.

Anyway … the dragon is definitely waking up and reinforcing the hold it has on its people. For what purpose? Well, I hope we don't find out too late what that purpose is.

Lake Town better watch out. :)

Dan
* And you can bet it would have cost the US, or any other Western nation, hundreds of times more money to annex the Paracel and Spratley islands and build bigger artificial islands out of them, which has given them control of a massive area atop fossil fuel reserves and depriving smaller nations of their essential fishing grounds.

Remember that huge armada of GreenPeace ships that were trying to block and ram the Chinese military ships from claiming and damaging the delicate Paracel and Spratley Islands?

No? Me neither. I think there might have been one, maybe, and taking pictures from far away.

But you can bet they would have been masses of them there if some Western power had been involved. Just like they will get involved if a Western nation or coalition ever takes those islands back. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? :)

Dan

Actually I'd say China is vulnerable, their particular blend of communism and free market economics has created wealthy elites undreamed of by most past communist states and a growing middle class. If the leadership kick over the gravy train I don't give much for their chances of survival! And in creating this system they have also destroyed their original moral authority – and the populace know it. Hence the increasing playing of the nationalism card and the freaking out about, and heavy handed repression of, movements like Falun Gong. And that's without getting into the international economics.

And while so far China have avoided getting sucked into foreign conflicts. Sooner or later the power politics they are playing are going to necessitate it. And their heavy playing of the nationalism card at home may make it increasingly difficult for the leadership to back out of challenging situations… Basically what happens when the first African state bites the hand that feeds it and nationalises Chinese owned land to hand to some dictators supporters? For the moment they are all happy to take the money, and complain about Taiwan's presence on international bodies, but that may not last.

ROUWetPatchBehindTheSofa:
"Basically what happens when the first African state bites the hand that feeds it and nationalises Chinese owned land to hand to some dictators supporters?"

Wow, that would be one hell of a gaming scenario too! Very, VERY interesting.

Dan
PS. I dont know if they've learned enough yet from their UN peacekeeping missions (Sudan, Mali, Liberia, Congo, etc) to manage such a scenario smoothly, but they might. Aside U.N. operations, they've handled themselves well in Yemen and Somalia.
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