In one of the biggest actions the administration has taken against fentanyl trafficking, the U.S. on Tuesday announced a series of indictments and sanctions against 14 people and 14 firms across China and Canada related to the import of the drug to the United States.
I’m no china apologist, but I honestly hope they destabilize Western society with opiates before we start having internal religious/ultranationalist revolts. It would be a poetic way to have history play out.
I mean, I’m firmly in the camp of trying to avoid christian nationalist / neo-fascist takeover of western society as well mate. Call me pragmatic, but I’m not a romantic when it comes to society potentially devolving into global authoritarianism.
Don’t worry, China will invade us after our boxer rebellion and force us into trade agreements.
If you’re downvoting this: the opium war was a series of conflicts where Britain fought to smuggle opium into China and China trying to stop it. The Boxer rebellion was an anti colonial uprising to kick westerns (British, American, and others) out of China. The Boxer protocols was a heavily imbalanced treaty that heavily destabilized China and in my opinion put conditions in place that made communist China possible.
We get the references, it was just a shit comment.
I don’t think every single person got the reference but that aside I don’t think it was a “shit” comment either. The opium war and the boxer protocols are very much in the minds of the Chinese communist leadership, which could be just Xi Jinping nowadays. Xi has referred to them as an “intense humiliation for the country” and a “great pain for its people”. These cultural memories are, in my opinion, definitely playing a part in china’s policies when it comes to fentanyl. And that’s how I interpreted that comment. Perhaps it could have been started less crassly but the core point that in the past the shoe was on the other foot is completely valid.
It’s not really valid to speak of shoes and feet unless the US were the ones subjecting China to the opium, which isn’t true and this whole thread conveniently glossed over.
American traders participated in trading opium in China (source)
Let me be clear, you’re talking about shoes and feet like the British weren’t the primary architects and mechanics of the opium wars and the American merchant participants were instead. “Cultural memories” etc.
The existence of ultra-nationalists IS them destabilizing us. You think the racist idiots just organized themselves without prompting or funding?
I think that fascism is a natural reaction to a failing system. One that needs to be stomped out, but one that should be expected. Only truly head in the sand liberals think it’s even majority due to outside forces. That was true in boxer china, the weimar republic, greece, and many many other places. It’s true here and now too.
And why do you think the system is failing now?
The accumulation of capital at the top and rent seeking causing increasing cycles of booms and busts due to speculation while crowding out the ability for the masses to maintain a living standard.
“Chinese buyers spent $13.6 billion on US residential real estate in the year ending March 2023”
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/china-economy-us-housing-market-home-prices-demand-supply-2023-8#:~:text=Chinese buyers spent %2413.6 billion,the housing market in China.
I’m certainly not saying that it’s purely external influence. I’m saying this is a thing they want and are certainly feeding into.
13.6 B in an 80 trillion market is a rounding error.