I always feel dismayed hearing Blinken. US foreign policy under Biden, and Blinken, appears to have moved from the bumbling isolationism and personality-driven politics of Trump to a brutish...
I always feel dismayed hearing Blinken. US foreign policy under Biden, and Blinken, appears to have moved from the bumbling isolationism and personality-driven politics of Trump to a brutish American aggression and supremacism, underpinned by a deep-seated sense of American exceptionalism and the need, and right, of America to lead the world.
Blinken starts out his opening remarks with an aggressive laundry list of topics that, he claims threaten what he describes as "the rules-based order," by which presumably he means the explicitly American-led order he described in his interviews with the European press recently: because, as he pointed out then, if America was not present to lead the world, then it would be influenced by bad actors like China, or have no leadership at all. He ends his comments, in what appears to be an unexpected response speech, with an outright American exceptionalist threat. He conflates American engagement with American leadership: at one point using the two words interchangeably.
Both China and the US have significant problems. But if this is the new, respectful and professional US style of diplomacy, it is certainly depressing.
I'm quite confused. I was commenting on the US statements, not the Chinese statements. The latter seemed to be very typical, with reiterations of arguments about internal affairs, claims of...
Comments like these are curious to me. Nearly every statement made by the Chinese delegation was steeped in bluster.
I'm quite confused. I was commenting on the US statements, not the Chinese statements. The latter seemed to be very typical, with reiterations of arguments about internal affairs, claims of progress in dubiously relevant areas and perfunctory whataboutism, and of little difference from comments that have been discussed many times. The US approach here is what is new, by virtue of the political changes there.
Yet you appear to have written a response, almost entirely on a topic I didn't comment on at all, which appears to repeatedly accuse me of supporting the Chinese comments by virtue of being critical of the US comments. Can one not see both as problematic? Must there be "the bad guy" and, presumably by consequence, "the good guy"? Are you suggesting that, because the Chinese comments were bad, the US comments should not be criticized? Or are you suggesting that any comment needs to give equal time criticizing both?
Was the Chinese rhetoric not steeped in Chinese exceptionalism to you? It didn't seem like heavy handed bluster?
Do you think South Korea, Japan, Taiwan or even a nominally communist nation like Vietnam would prefer a Chinese led system to that by America?
What is the point of questions like this? Again, I said nothing about the Chinese comments, and I don't particularly disagree with your comments on them. I just don't see how they relate to the US comments taken as an indicator wider post-Trump changes in American foreign policy, and don't see why there was a call for seeing criticism of the US comments as being pro-China. This is not some sort of novel where there is a protagonist and antagonist.
It's easy to read a criticism of the American stance as an implicit statement of support for the Chinese delegation. Reading through the thread with no other context, that's how I framed your...
It's easy to read a criticism of the American stance as an implicit statement of support for the Chinese delegation. Reading through the thread with no other context, that's how I framed your first post in my head.
Seeing this second post is an excellent reminder that we shouldn't jump to those conclusions, but it's something all too easy to do. So much news, so much commentary on the news, is framed as a simple two-sided adversarial struggle - it's become ingrained to the extent that it takes conscious effort to remember that not everyone is operating in that world.
It reminds me a little bit of this Twitter thread - we're all on hyper-alert for polarised, bad faith conversation and it means that real discussion starts to get caught in the same mental filter.
Im not sure pallas was intending to say that america was the bad guy here, only that he was dissapointed by americas position itself. Both 'sides' can be bad...
Im not sure pallas was intending to say that america was the bad guy here, only that he was dissapointed by americas position itself. Both 'sides' can be bad...
Lately, I've been seeing and hearing this word flying around a lot. I'm still not sure of what it means exactly, and even less sure of what it is supposed to mean in the casual discourse of today....
neoliberal
Lately, I've been seeing and hearing this word flying around a lot. I'm still not sure of what it means exactly, and even less sure of what it is supposed to mean in the casual discourse of today.
Nevertheless, if we're counting the number of decades, it would seem that keynesianism has been is disgrace since the early 1970s, owing to two phenomenons:
The United States of America passing their Peak Oil in 1970 and the ensuing Oil Shocks of 1973 and 1979 which greatly hampered public spendings.
The 1974 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel being awarded to Friedrich Hayek
Meanwhile, the PRC taking the place of the ROC at the UN, Mao's death in 1976 and the reforms conducted by Deng Xiaoping since 1979 have put the PRC on the map of global trade, with the ever-increasing weight that we know.
So, that would be a good five decades of neoliberalism.
I read through this and did not find what you did. Can you point out which statements you thought aggressive or where he explicitly states that it's an American-led order? Do you mean statements...
I read through this and did not find what you did. Can you point out which statements you thought aggressive or where he explicitly states that it's an American-led order?
Do you mean statements like the one below?
Our administration is committed to leading with diplomacy to advance the interests of the United States and to strengthen the rules-based international order. That system is not an abstraction. It helps countries resolve differences peacefully, coordinate multilateral efforts effectively and participate in global commerce with the assurance that everyone is following the same rules.
Or,
A hallmark of our leadership, of our engagement in the world, is our alliances and our partnerships that have been built on a totally voluntary basis. And it is something that President Biden is committed to reinvigorating.
And there's one more hallmark of our leadership here at home, and that's a constant quest to, as we say, form a more perfect union. And that quest, by definition, acknowledges our imperfections, acknowledges that we're not perfect.
On the other side I find the typical “stay out of our internal affairs” bit from the Party officials tiring, especially considering their continued aggresive moves in and towards other countries.
The is just thawing from four years of hibernation. Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China certainly grew more assertive and demanding. It isn't surprising that some time is needed for both...
The
respectful and professional US style of diplomacy
is just thawing from four years of hibernation. Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China certainly grew more assertive and demanding.
It isn't surprising that some time is needed for both parties to adjust to the new reality.
I always feel dismayed hearing Blinken. US foreign policy under Biden, and Blinken, appears to have moved from the bumbling isolationism and personality-driven politics of Trump to a brutish American aggression and supremacism, underpinned by a deep-seated sense of American exceptionalism and the need, and right, of America to lead the world.
Blinken starts out his opening remarks with an aggressive laundry list of topics that, he claims threaten what he describes as "the rules-based order," by which presumably he means the explicitly American-led order he described in his interviews with the European press recently: because, as he pointed out then, if America was not present to lead the world, then it would be influenced by bad actors like China, or have no leadership at all. He ends his comments, in what appears to be an unexpected response speech, with an outright American exceptionalist threat. He conflates American engagement with American leadership: at one point using the two words interchangeably.
Both China and the US have significant problems. But if this is the new, respectful and professional US style of diplomacy, it is certainly depressing.
I'm quite confused. I was commenting on the US statements, not the Chinese statements. The latter seemed to be very typical, with reiterations of arguments about internal affairs, claims of progress in dubiously relevant areas and perfunctory whataboutism, and of little difference from comments that have been discussed many times. The US approach here is what is new, by virtue of the political changes there.
Yet you appear to have written a response, almost entirely on a topic I didn't comment on at all, which appears to repeatedly accuse me of supporting the Chinese comments by virtue of being critical of the US comments. Can one not see both as problematic? Must there be "the bad guy" and, presumably by consequence, "the good guy"? Are you suggesting that, because the Chinese comments were bad, the US comments should not be criticized? Or are you suggesting that any comment needs to give equal time criticizing both?
What is the point of questions like this? Again, I said nothing about the Chinese comments, and I don't particularly disagree with your comments on them. I just don't see how they relate to the US comments taken as an indicator wider post-Trump changes in American foreign policy, and don't see why there was a call for seeing criticism of the US comments as being pro-China. This is not some sort of novel where there is a protagonist and antagonist.
It's easy to read a criticism of the American stance as an implicit statement of support for the Chinese delegation. Reading through the thread with no other context, that's how I framed your first post in my head.
Seeing this second post is an excellent reminder that we shouldn't jump to those conclusions, but it's something all too easy to do. So much news, so much commentary on the news, is framed as a simple two-sided adversarial struggle - it's become ingrained to the extent that it takes conscious effort to remember that not everyone is operating in that world.
It reminds me a little bit of this Twitter thread - we're all on hyper-alert for polarised, bad faith conversation and it means that real discussion starts to get caught in the same mental filter.
Im not sure pallas was intending to say that america was the bad guy here, only that he was dissapointed by americas position itself. Both 'sides' can be bad...
Lately, I've been seeing and hearing this word flying around a lot. I'm still not sure of what it means exactly, and even less sure of what it is supposed to mean in the casual discourse of today.
Nevertheless, if we're counting the number of decades, it would seem that keynesianism has been is disgrace since the early 1970s, owing to two phenomenons:
The United States of America passing their Peak Oil in 1970 and the ensuing Oil Shocks of 1973 and 1979 which greatly hampered public spendings.
The 1974 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel being awarded to Friedrich Hayek
Meanwhile, the PRC taking the place of the ROC at the UN, Mao's death in 1976 and the reforms conducted by Deng Xiaoping since 1979 have put the PRC on the map of global trade, with the ever-increasing weight that we know.
So, that would be a good five decades of neoliberalism.
I read through this and did not find what you did. Can you point out which statements you thought aggressive or where he explicitly states that it's an American-led order?
Do you mean statements like the one below?
Or,
On the other side I find the typical “stay out of our internal affairs” bit from the Party officials tiring, especially considering their continued aggresive moves in and towards other countries.
The
is just thawing from four years of hibernation. Meanwhile, the People's Republic of China certainly grew more assertive and demanding.
It isn't surprising that some time is needed for both parties to adjust to the new reality.
Mirror (in case there's a paywall) :
https://archive.ph/f36Sr
https://web.archive.org/web/20210319191726/https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/How-it-happened-Transcript-of-the-US-China-opening-remarks-in-Alaska