China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

This was pointed out by a Sinica guest and there happened to be an economist on the show at the time, who made the excellent point that in America we should have known better. China has a good excuse in that everyone is naive about property markets because they came into existence so recently. In America people should have known better from the periodic mortgage crises and all-too-common urban property value decay that we have experienced as a mature market.

Chinese cities also have a lot of crap housing that needs to be replaced, and they need added housing stock to deal with growth. So it makes sense for there to be a boom in housing construction. The scenario is totally different from the US where you had subdivisions being put up in the exurbs without economic justification.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Mar 26, 2012

# ¿ Mar 26, 2012 08:44

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:58

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

hitension posted:

But I can barely even think of a famous Asian American. "Behold our Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu!"

I think this is hilarious mainly because most educated Chinese could name at least two: Jeremy Lin, Gary Locke..

# ¿ Oct 2, 2012 04:46

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

MoraleHazard posted:

whatever 7, thanks for that post. I wish they would show re-runs of Merton's or Palin's work on BBC America instead of Star Trek: TNG reruns.

Thankfully, all the Palin miniseries are on Netflix.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2012 16:39

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

McDowell posted:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21175466

Could the DPRK be China's proxy to try and provoke the US/Japan?

No. China doesn't control what the DPRK does. In fact, usually the DPRK does the opposite of what China would like it to do. It's not the best alliance on the planet.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 01:41

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Imperialist Dog posted:

And as someone who lives in Hong Kong, can't buy infant formula for his newborn son because the stores are all sold out, gets clipped in the train every morning by mainlanders with huge carts of said formula going back to the border, and has personally seen mainlanders and their kids pissing/making GBS threads in the streets/mall/train station so many times I'm no longer surprised by it, there is a reason the "venom and prejudice" exists. It's hard not to pre-judge mainland tourists when so many of them act as if they're God's gift to Hong Kong.

I've seen a lot of these attitudes toward mainlanders in Singapore too, although street making GBS threads seems to be less of an issue there for some reason. And replace carts of baby formula on the subway with carts of cigarettes and baijiu in the airport duty free.

Aside from the yelling and line cutting my favorite mainlander tourist behavior is speaking Chinese to clearly non-Chinese people (in a country where English is by far the predominant language) and expecting to be understood. They're not unlike American tourists in that respect, actually - they even do the whole thing where they yell louder if they weren't understood the first time.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jan 25, 2013

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 16:12

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

Are you serious about the "for some reason" or being facetious? It's because they beat your rear end with a stick if they catch you.

I'm being sarcastic. Although street making GBS threads is not a caning offense - they probably give you a ruinous fine instead. There really aren't that many offenses punishable by caning. Vandalism and visa overstaying are the only two that could trip most people up, the rest are things like aggravated assault, rape, etc.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jan 25, 2013

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 16:19

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

I've been to the mainland several times and I've never seen any street making GBS threads. I must be going to the wrong places. (and I don't spend all my time in tier 1 cities either..)

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 22:50

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Bloodnose posted:

Those of you tolling the death of Hong Kong as a major business center are not entirely correct. Shanghai isn't in competition in the same market as Hong Kong, because doing business there means relying on a broken legal system. Singapore is the real competition for Hong Kong, because it's another common law jurisdiction in the Sinosphere with extremely business-friendly policies.

Also, a lot of consulting and finance firms are shifting analytical resources from Shanghai to HK because of the constant GFW-related disruptions to VPNs. The GFW issues have only gotten worse in the new year so you can expect this trend to accelerate. You can't produce decent analytical products without access to things like Bloomberg, the NYT, and the WSJ.

Singapore is tightening its visa policies for skilled labor big time right now, and this trend is only going to continue. So Singapore will become less and less competitive versus HK in the short to medium term. Companies are already complaining about the new policies and the PAP still has 3 years to go until the next general election. That's 3 years during which you can expect more and more immigration restrictions to be put in place.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jan 26, 2013

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 23:52

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

China Megathread - Street making GBS threads and Baby Formula Discussion Zone

# ¿ Jan 31, 2013 03:29

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

To be fair, everyone who can sends their kids to the U.S. The Chinese higher education system is a joke. There's a pervasive attitude that college is supposed to be a four year vacation, and the kids get to pick which teachers to fire so there's not much chance of that changing. A bachelors' degree from a Chinese university doesn't mean a whole lot.

I used to assume that Chinese kids were in the U.S. because of the U.S. education system, but now I realize they're coming over because of the Chinese education system.

Chinese universities are good at the very top end. A degree from Beida, Qinghua, or Fudan will get you as far as any non-Ivy US undergrad degree, and possibly farther depending on what you want to do. The rest of the top 10 are OK quality (some better than others) and a lot of them have rapidly improving global reputations so they might be good if you can get into the right major. After the top 10 quality takes a nosedive.

But a lot of rich Chinese kids can't muster the test scores to get into one of the few decent schools in China, and when this is the case it's usually off to the US with them! (Or England, or Canada, or Australia..)

# ¿ Feb 16, 2013 05:02

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Just to play devil's advocate, why wouldn't HK property prices keep going up for the foreseeable future? There are tons of rich mainlanders out there, it's easy for them to move to HK or buy a second apartment there and go back and forth to Henan or wherever, and HK is a far more desirable place to live than most of the mainland. If you accept these fundamentals you would expect high demand for HK real estate and thus increasing prices. Same thing with Singapore, for that matter.

# ¿ Mar 14, 2013 15:02

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

There is plenty of fine dining in Sydney, it's just that Michelin hasn't gotten around to doing a guide for them yet. Also a lot of the Michelin starred places in HK are not traditional fine dining restaurants.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2013 03:53

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

Well you have to remember my doom-and-gloom posts about the party/state are not necessarily about doom and gloom for China the nation. The Eastern Bloc states were clearly destined for failure and nobody shed many tears for them after the 1989 revolutions, and their nations are all doing much better without them. The PRC transitioning peacefully to a successor state is not too hard to imagine if enough of the ruling elite finally come to the conclusion that the PRC is an unsustainable system. You may scoff at the idea of the party elite heading a revolution but factions within the ruling elite are a common, perhaps the most common, originator of peaceful revolutions.

The party has been making great efforts to indoctrinate the elite with the notion that any moderation would result in a 1991 Soviet Union-style collapse of China precisely so this doesn't happen.

In my opinion, it will get worse repression wise before it gets better. They have nothing to lose by cracking down more until it starts to seriously bite into the economy. The middle class will be co-opted through enhanced food safety and environmental policies.

Increased repression might cut into FDI on the margins, but China needs FDI less than it used to and foreign companies will not start to leave unless it gets really bad.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Mar 25, 2013

# ¿ Mar 25, 2013 16:07

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arakan posted:

But the point is how can they prove that the cash or property is real? A fake bank statement is going to look the same as a real one. That's why the interview is all that really matters now, I don't know if it was different in the past.

I think you actually need a letter from the bank to go with the statement. So they could just call up the dude who signed the letter.

Arakan posted:

I don't have any citations. I don't even know if they publish this info anywhere, I'm sure they do but I'm too lazy to look. I get my statistics straight from the FSO's/adjudicators doing visas at the consulates, and they get theirs from totaling how many visas they approve/deny. The interview is the actual part that matters and it's extremely subjective, because any documents showing bank records or property ownership or whatever will look the same whether they are fake or real, so these kinds of "ties to China" don't actually matter much.

Just because your FSO buddy says "dude, yeah, we approve like 99% of people these days" over beers doesn't mean that's the actual stat.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Apr 10, 2013

# ¿ Apr 10, 2013 15:58

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

There's also Sidney Rittenberg. Not a CEO but probably rose to higher levels in modern China than any other foreigner.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Rittenberg

On another note, Singapore has actually had some fairly high level Eurasian politicians.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2013 03:58

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Throatwarbler posted:

Sinica addresses this in their Q&A ep a few weeks ago, they don't generally talk about Tibet or Xinjiang because dumb laowais who want to talk about that poo poo are invariable ignorant ideologues who really just want to stir up trouble. This is the correct decision.

There is a historian at my university who literally wrote the (English-language) book on Xinjiang, and is not a political activist. He was banned from China for several years because he wrote a chapter for an edited volume on Xinjiang compiled by an ex-US government official. Somebody in the Chinese government got their hands on the book and decided that it was part of the grand US conspiracy to destabilize Xinjiang. Sure there are a lot of dumb laowais out there talking about Xinjiang/Tibet but the authorities are also paranoid to the point of excess.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Apr 16, 2013

# ¿ Apr 16, 2013 02:43

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

To be fair on the whole watch thing, you can get some really convincing fakes for $150 or so. (Sadly, I'm sure these guys have real ones.)

# ¿ Apr 24, 2013 19:04

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Baby formula news. Looks like now that HK has cracked down, people are moving on to Singapore.

http://singaporeseen.stomp.com.sg/stomp/sgseen/this_urban_jungle/1799452/chinese_parents_pay_up_to_200_for_milk_powder_from_singapore.html

quote:

Parents from China are willing to buy milk powder from Singapore at a premium and shipping it back to their country, following a series of food safety scandals.

Shin Min Daily News reported that some parents in China have been paying double to buy baby formula from Singapore, and are willing to pay up to $200 to have the product couriered to their home, reported the Shin Min Daily News.

Chinese buyers have been snapping up baby formula from other countries following tainted milk scandals in their domestic market. For example, shelves were cleared of milk powder in Hong Kong following the Sanlu scandal involving milk tainted with melamine.

Madam Tan, a Chinese national who has been living in Singapore for more than 10 years, told Shin Min that she has been sending baby formula to a friend in China who gave birth two months ago.

She ships 12 cans of the product each month, revealing that it costs $90 to deliver the product by sea and $190, by air.

She said that her friend does not mind the extra costs as she believes that the products from Singapore are of higher quality.

Another Chinese citizen living in Singapore told the evening paper that she sends baby formula to her brother in China. She added that several of her friends are also doing the same for their friends and relatives.

Shin Min also reported that there is a website set up to help Chinese nationals living in Singapore who are not familiar with the shipping procedures for the product.

# ¿ May 23, 2013 16:14

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

MeramJert posted:

Also my time in Singapore was limited, but it seemed like it would blow Hong Kong out of the water in multiculturalism rankings. And it isn't even that far away.

The multicultural ethos in Singapore is increasingly less applicable to foreigners, especially those from the Philippines, India, or mainland China. Attitudes towards these groups are becoming similar to those in HK, although the dislike of mainlanders is more muted.

You also have to keep in mind that ethnic issues are a very, very sensitive topic in Singapore, given that it has a history of race riots up until the late 60s. The laws governing discourse in this area are very strict and people can and do get arrested for stepping out of bounds. In fact, a web cartoonist just got arrested for suggesting that certain groups are "more equal than others," although he did it in a very crude way.

Pro-PRC Laowai posted:

Singapore also doesn't live in broom closets and chicken coops

Some of the accommodations for foreign workers are not far off. There are a lot of abuses that stay under the radar given that the penalty for striking is arrest, jail time, and deportation - and it is enforced. Good news is that a few NGOs have emerged that are trying to bring attention to this.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 30, 2013

# ¿ May 30, 2013 16:34

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Y-Hat posted:

As for Filipino slave labor, why do most domestic workers that are treated like poo poo come from there? I could understand going to Singapore because it's nearby, but why do they even bother going to the Middle East? Things can't be that bad in the Philippines, can it?

You're already starting to see an increase in Burmese domestic workers, I have a feeling they might begin replacing the Filipinos over the next few years.

# ¿ May 30, 2013 18:10

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Also, most of these countries don't allow South Asians or Africans to get domestic worker visas, which helps to narrow the labor pool.

# ¿ May 31, 2013 01:16

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

Like most capitalist solutions to problems, this sounds good if you don't think too hard about it but is really shortsighted. What is the domestic labor force supposed to do if their "race blind" employers decide to hire from somewhere else? This sort of policy is a direct ticket to creating a disgruntled underclass without a stake in the current system. Unlike a lot of middle-upper class professionals, I believe the "they terk er jerbs!" crew has a legitimate grievance.

You can't extrapolate the US discourse on immigration to HK or Singapore. If you have a rapidly aging, small population with fertility in the toilet, you are going to have labor shortages especially in healthcare. The workers for these jobs need to come from somewhere. And the problem is exacerbated by every single family in HK and SG pushing their kids to go into white collar professions.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 18:48 on May 31, 2013

# ¿ May 31, 2013 18:42

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Vladimir Putin posted:

Why not? I mean if America has 15 trillion GDP, it can reasonably afford say 50 F-22's. If China has 17 Trillion GDP, it should be able to afford 50 F-22's or whatever equivalent poo poo they have. And when they go to war, it will be 50 F-22's vs 50 F-22's.

Real life is not Civ where you can just spend gold to fast build units.

In order to build an F-22 you need not only money, but also sufficient quantities of extremely advanced, highly specialized human and physical capital. The US has both, while China won't have the latter for many decades.

To give you an idea of how far China is behind - they are just now sorting out how to land planes on aircraft carriers, something even India has already mastered. (The US figured that out in the 1930s.) China also has only three world-class universities, and maybe five more that are at a decent international standard. The US has probably 25 world-class universities and over 100 decent quality ones.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jul 26, 2013

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 19:37

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Not to mention that China's natural resource endowments (an important source of national wealth) are relatively unimpressive for a country of its size. They have some oil and gas in Xinjiang, decent coal reserves, and a lot of rare earths, and that's about it as far as I know.

The US has more oil and gas (especially if you include Canada), more coal, and could have more rare earths if it really wanted to.

(You have to really rape the environment to extract rare earths, which is one reason why China is such a big producer. The US used to have a fairly large rare earth mining industry. Then environmentalism became a thing, and mining towns started to have massive cancer outbreaks.)

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Jul 26, 2013

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 20:04

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Lucy Heartfilia posted:

Are all those autonomous regions a net positive or negative for China's economy?

Positive, they have a ton of natural resources and Tibet could have a huge tourism industry if the political situation there changed.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 20:11

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Back on topic, baby formula on the front page of the NYT. Not much news here but interesting that the issue is getting such visibility.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/world/asia/chinas-search-for-infant-formula-goes-global.html

quote:

Chinese Search for Infant Formula Goes Global
By EDWARD WONG
HONG KONG � The group of 40 mainland Chinese tourists made all the requisite shopping purchases on a recent trip to Europe: silk scarves, Swiss watches, Louis Vuitton handbags.

And baby milk powder, of course. Loads of it.

Rushing shelves at a supermarket in Germany, Chinese shoppers stuffed a half-dozen large cans into bags, one of the tourists said. �One woman told me, �If it was easier to carry, we would buy more; it�s good and cheap here,� � recalled the tourist, Zhang Yuhua, 60, who bought two cans.

Chinese are buying up infant milk powder everywhere they can get it, outside of China. And that has led to shortages in at least a half-dozen countries, from the Netherlands to New Zealand. The lack of supply is a reminder of how the consumption patterns of Chinese � and their rising food and environmental safety concerns � can have far-reaching impacts on critical daily goods around the world.

Big retail chains like Boots and Sainsbury�s in Britain now limit individuals to two cans of infant formula per purchase, and customs officials in Hong Kong are enforcing a two-can, or four-pound, restriction on travelers taking it out of the territory � with violators facing fines of up to $6,500 and two years in prison.

Officials in Hong Kong are treating baby milk smugglers like criminals who traffic in more illicit kinds of powder. In April, the customs police held a news conference to announce that a two-day �antismuggling operation� had resulted in the breaking up of three �syndicates,� the arrest of 10 people and the seizure of nearly 220 pounds of formula worth $3,500.

On the mainland, Chinese parents� obsession with foreign milk powder, which stems from distrust of domestic brands, is stirring a nationalistic �buy China� movement among some officials.

This month, a government agency announced it had begun an investigation into price-fixing in the baby milk powder industry; targets of the inquiry included some of the biggest foreign companies. Officials also announced stricter inspection procedures throughout the industry, and editorials by state-run news organizations said they hoped Chinese powder makers would improve their standards so as to �defeat� the foreign companies.

Travelers who manage to arrive in China with large amounts of baby milk powder must elude Chinese customs officials, who are now enforcing strict limits on formula imports.

�Milk powder safety is the issue of No. 1 concern among pregnant women and new-baby households,� said Allen Wang, chief executive and co-founder of Babytree.com, the largest online forum for Chinese parents. �People are asking friends, �What do you recommend? How do you store up foreign brands? Can you help me if you travel overseas?� �

Worries over domestic infant formula surged in 2008, when six babies died and more than 300,000 children fell ill from drinking milk products that had been tainted with melamine, a toxic chemical.

In response, many Chinese turned to buying imported infant milk powder. But in the years since, there have been occasional reports of distributors or retailers in China adulterating foreign-made powder with Chinese formula, and so many Chinese consumers have begun getting their powder directly from overseas.

A survey by the Pew Research Center showed that 41 percent of Chinese said last year that food safety was a very serious problem, compared with just 12 percent in 2008.

�How can we still trust mainland-made food after reading all these horrendous stories on food safety issues?� said Tina, 28, a Guangzhou resident and the mother of a baby girl. �We are the parents of our children, and nobody can accuse us for just wanting the best for our babies. It�s not that we don�t love our country � we just dare not take the risk.�

Tina, who spoke on the condition that only her English name be used, says she gets 80 percent of her formula through the mail from relatives in New Zealand. And family members go about once a month to Hong Kong to buy diapers and other baby supplies. �Most of my friends get others to carry in baby formula from abroad,� she said.

In China, more mothers are breast-feeding because of the recent scandals, but formula remains popular for various reasons, including aggressive marketing by formula makers. Mr. Wang said Babytree.com�s surveys show about two-thirds of mainland households with babies use formula, and foreign brands command a 60 percent market share. Beijing News reported in May that statistics showed the amount of foreign milk powder that China imports leapt to 310,000 tons in 2009, more than twice the amount in 2008, when the scandal hit. In 2011, it was 528,000 tons.

Prices have risen with demand. Both Mr. Wang and the online edition of People�s Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper, said the prices of foreign-brand formula sold in China had increased by at least 30 percent since 2008. Some 28-ounce cans cost more than $60.

For safety and price reasons, Chinese increasingly want to buy from someone in the source country. One popular outlet is the Internet � entrepreneurs running online stores ask people they know overseas to mail formula to China. Mainland parents also ask friends or relatives going abroad to mail or bring back formula.

Such was the case with Zhao Jun, 30, who in May asked a friend going on a work trip to Britain to buy cans of a British brand, Cow & Gate, for her baby girl. �In my circles, every mom I know orders milk powder from overseas or buys it from Hong Kong,� said Ms. Zhao, an editor at Tencent, a Chinese Web portal.

Since that first foray into foreign formula, Ms. Zhao has been ordering plenty more Cow & Gate. Online, she finds Chinese students or homemakers abroad who charge for the service of buying formula and mailing it to China. �Usually I buy six cans at a time,� she said.

Ms. Zhao said the recent limits at British retail chains meant that she had to pay those entrepreneurs more of a surcharge, and her friends returning from work trips bring back fewer cans.

Parents are asking why manufacturers cannot increase production to meet demand, and some say the makers might be encouraging the foreign shopping limits to force Chinese to buy the same products at higher prices in China. The International Formula Council, an association of manufacturers, declined an interview request. Mead Johnson Nutrition, an American maker, said in a statement that although it had �strategically located� plants around the world, there were also �uncharacteristic fluctuations in consumer demand � such as the situation in Hong Kong earlier this year.�

Meanwhile, Andrew Opie, food director of the British Retail Consortium, said the limits at retail stores were �being done at the request of manufacturers.�

The government-mandated limit in Hong Kong went into effect March 1. There are large Chinese- and English-language signs on both sides of the busy Hong Kong-Shenzhen border crossing at Lo Wu that warn: �Departing with excessive powdered formula commits an offense.�

At Lung Fung Garden, a street mall that is one subway stop from Lo Wu, employees and managers of pharmacies displaying towers of formula cans said that business had plummeted.

�Before, we would sell out of our stock,� said one man at the Lung Fung Pharmacy. �I feel the government should get rid of the two-can limit.�

Mainland buyers were still swarming the mall, and most appeared to be sticking to the two-can limit. One woman, though, stuffed three cans of Friso Gold formula, at $25 each, into a black duffel bag.

Amy Qin and Shi Da contributed research from Beijing, and Hilda Wang from Hong Kong.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 20:14

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Vladimir Putin posted:

Breast feeding isn't easy especially with the added pressure of the one child policy. People are probably nervous that even with breast feeding their kid isn't getting the maximum nutrition it could get. Formula is expensive but you can measure it out and get a quantitative measure of how much your baby is ingesting. With breast feeding you never know exactly how much your baby eats.

The other thing with breast feeding is that with the rest of the Chinese food supply also hosed up, who knows what is in people's breast milk..(likely all kinds of heavy metals at least)

# ¿ Jul 27, 2013 01:06

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

The question of whether or not games are "banned in China" isn't really that relevant since 95% of Chinese are going to get pirated versions anyway.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2013 03:37

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Saint Celestine posted:

I knew about Italy, but today I learned Thailand has an aircraft carrier.

It has no operational aircraft and is basically a glorified royal yacht:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTMS_Chakri_Naruebet

# ¿ Jan 24, 2014 01:24

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Getting back on topic for this thread, in Singapore today I saw a (presumably) mainland mother have her kid do a 100% OG public street poo poo in front of Ikea. Surprisingly the police did not immediately swoop in and arrest the offenders.

If I were a local, I would have Instagrammed the scene, instead I just did a double take and walked by.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2014 11:17

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Vladimir Putin posted:

Well look how Singapore turned out. Actually wasn't that a huge debacle? Japan feinted or something and wound up steamrolling he entirety of British forces there way too easily.

Some atrocious tactical errors led to the sinking of the flagships of the British fleet.

Also the ground commanders in Singapore sat on their asses instead of pre-empting the Japanese ground forces while they were still forming up in Thailand. (This is in spite of the fact that detailed plans had been drawn up to do exactly this.)

Had either of those things turned out differently there's a good chance Singapore could have held out.

Plus the British were short of experienced officers, battle-hardened troops, and quality aircraft all of which the Japanese had in spades.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 05:21

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Chickenwalker posted:

Seeing as how the blocking of Google and its various services is probably never going to let up, can someone recommend a good Western alternative to gchat that won't be blocked or obfuscated in China? Something with a mobile app that also has some form of end to end encryption similar to gchat would be ideal.

Weixin and poo poo like that is off the table. I don't care how thoroughly it's been combed through or how open the code is, I don't trust Chinese software not to have some secret malicious capacity. Not to mention the fact that it's very actively monitored.

Whatsapp, Skype

# ¿ Jul 2, 2014 08:41

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Bloodnose posted:

The fact that the transition happened at all is the point. I personally believe that Singapore isn't a good counterexample to the notion that rich countries have to democratize because Lee Kuan Yew is still alive and kinda in power. When the founding president of the authoritarian regime is still around, I consider that still too early to tell and I wonder how well the PAP regime will survive his death.

The Singaporean opposition has been making inroads but they are fragmented to a Monty Pythonesque degree. The people with the grassroots campaigning skills are totally divorced from those with the brains to develop a real ideological alternative to the PAP. The latter group either leaves the country, gets co-opted by the PAP, or joins the more elite oriented opposition parties that have zero ground credibility.

My guess is that once LKY kicks it the PAP will stagger on for another decade or two until his son exits the scene and a new generation of opposition leaders comes along.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 05:19

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Bloodnose posted:

Bahrain hosts like half the US Navy and all the other gulf states there are clients of the same Navy.

See also: Singapore (though not quite to the same extent)

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 09:16

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

GuestBob posted:

When most of those fingered choose to bugger off it shows that they were never working for anyone but themselves in the first place (will their successors be any better?) and that the civil service infrastructure in China is still a giant tasteless soup train. Are their replacements being paid more? No! They'll sill be earning Y3,000/month for running a government department and the excuse will be "oh, you get a free flat with that".

Yeah this is the part of the Singapore model that people keep missing when they make the comparisons to China. Although paying officials big salaries carries its own problems..

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 14:38

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

The problem is more that it reinforces the division between the political elite and the rest of the population. You see how much Americans bitch about government employees living high on the hog now, imagine what it would be like if fed salaries of 200-300k were not uncommon and cabinet secretaries got paid in the millions.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2014 17:35

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

icantfindaname posted:

What's the deal with christians in asia? They aren't a thing in Taiwan or Japan or the mainland from what I understand, it's just SK. Why is that?

They're a pretty big deal in HK and Southeast Asia for the aforementioned reasons.

Why Korean Christians in particular are so hardcore I don't know, but I suspect there are cultural aspects at play.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 02:45

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Let's also not forget that Christianity was a pretty drat big deal in China until Rome massively shot itself in the foot with the Rites Controversy. If the Catholics had continued to permit traditional Confucian rites than a fully Christianized China might well have been the result.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 07:39

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

Street making GBS threads update. The eating mid street poo poo really makes this one.

http://therealsingapore.com/content/dear-trs-i-saw-prc-allowing-her-son-poo poo-publicly-outside-chinatown-mrt

quote:

Dear The Real Singapore,

Today I saw a PRC women allowing her son to poo poo publicly into a drain right beside Chinatown MRT station. This is very disturbing to me and I told her to bring her son to the toilet instead. However, she told me that I shouldn't tell her what to do and she say that there is nothing wrong for letting her son poo poo publicly into a drain.

She then started scolding me and saying about how Singaporeans think that they are very classy and always think that they are better than the PRCs. She say that PRCs are also human and that they also need to poo poo.

Worse of all after she let her son poo poo into the drain she threw the tissue paper she used to wipe her son buttocks all over the floor and just walk off! How is this kind of behaviour acceptable?

Is there a cultural clash or something? Recently I also see a video of a PRC women allowing her son to poo poo publicly in the streets of Hong Kong.

What would you do when you encounter this kind of behaviour?

Maybe we can add this into a photo compilation to celebrate our Singapore 50th Anniversary next year?

How we "Singaporeans" have degenerated from a fishing village into people that allow their children to poo poo everywhere in the public.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 05:20

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:58

Soy Division: Aug 12, 2004

For some reason Indian tourists and expats seem to have gotten the memo that street making GBS threads is not acceptable when abroad. Maybe it's that whole imperialism thing.

In any case, I walk past the area of this particular incident regularly and there is no shortage of public toilets.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 08:52

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