Guangzhou, China (/r/Cyberpunk)
Some time ago a commenter asked me about the state of China Studies in Russia, an issue that is pretty germane as they increasingly align with each other.
TL;DR – Catastrophic. Simply put, Russia does not have the cognitive tools to understand the country that Kremlin talking points describe as Russia’s “strategic partner.”
Longer answer: Alexander Gabuev, who has a BA/MA in Chinese History from Moscow State University, wrote a couple of comprehensive articles on the state of Sinology in Russia when he was deputy foreign editor of Kommersant:
- Illiteracy on China (2012)
- “The State has Left Sinology”: What remains of China Studies in Russia (2013)
This post is heavily based on Gabuev’s material.
History of Russian Sinology 101
The first Russian mission to China was in 1714, with contacts for the next 150 years dominated by religious figures (Illarion Rassokhin, Alexey Leontyev, Osip Kovalevsky, Nikita Bichurin). There was a faculty of Eastern languages at Kazan University from 1807-1855 (Nikita Bichurin, Palladiy Kafarov, Vasily Vasiliev), which relocated to Saint-Petersburg State University (SPBU) around 1854. The Eastern Institute was set up in Vladivostok in 1899.
The Oriental faculty at SPBU was disbanded in 1919 and was spread out across other faculties, but Eastern Studies continued flourishing during the 1920s. However, the Soviet Oriental Studies community was devastated by the late 1930s purges, with several prominent Sinologists such as Nikolay Konrad and Julian Shutsky being sent to the Gulag or shot on charges of being Japanese spies.
In the next 50 years, Sinology would recover and develop further, but strongly tied to the perceived needs of the state and, like all social sciences, under tight Marxist-Leninist ideological strictures. The collapse of the USSR brought ideological freedom, but also a collapse of funding (salaries for top Sinologists plummeted from a comfortable level of 400-500 rubles during the 1980s to $30-$50 by the mid-1990s) and spiraling corruption that preempted any flowering of Russian Sinology to this day.
“Sinology is dead”
In June 2011, President Medvedev was presiding over a state prize awarding ceremony. The only Russian social scientists to be recognized were a group of Sinologists, including Artem Kobzev and Mikhail Titarenko, for their work on compiling and editing a six tome Encyclopedia of Chinese Spiritual Culture: “Their work helps us better understand the traditions and spiritual culture of China, they deepen and enrich modern Sinology. Their work is read all over the world…” proclaimed Medvedev. Kobzev followed it up with a short history of Russian Sinology: The first Chinese-Russian dictionary was compiled under a 140,000 ruble grant from Alexander I, and the USSR also financed a Big Chinese-Russian Dictionary. This was a pointed comment; as he soon clarified in a smaller discussion with the President, the Encyclopedia had actually been financed by the Chinese Development Bank at the personal direction of its CEO Chen Yuan, in honor of his late father, who had warm feelings towards the USSR. According to Kobzev’s account, Medvedev was rather distraught by what he had heard, and the Sinologist soon got a letter from the Kremlin telling him that his suggestions were considered important. Soon after, the Russian Fund for the Humanitarian Sciences allocated a total of 6 million rubles [$200,000] in the form of five grants for the study of China. It’s unclear if anything useful was done with them; one of the five grants went to the Philosophy faculty of Saratov State University, which didn’t have a single Sinologist.
This anecdote appears to be pretty representative of the sorry state of China Studies and social science in general in Russia.
There are fewer than 200 academic Sinologists, of whom only about 50 can be considered active (he compares this with 15,000 in the United States, but apparently, this was a big overestimate; Gabuev says: “this figure appears to be wrong, my mistake. picked it up from an American colleague back in 2012 without critically assessing it”). The average age of these researchers is rising inexorably; the director of the Institute of the Far East RAS is 78 year old Mikhail Titarenko [he died in 2016]. Whereas there were 500 experts at that institution in the 1980s, there are now just 147 of them, according to Sergey Luzyanin, the Institute’s deputy director. There isn’t a single academic expert in Russia on the finances, law, or military of China.
This is linked to low academic salaries, even at Russia’s top institutions for Sinology. Here are some of the figures when Gabuev wrote his article:
- 16,000 rubles ($500 at 2012/13 exchange rates) for a Research Fellow, 27,000 rubles ($900) for a senior researcher at the Institute of the Far East RAS.
- 30,000 rubles [$1,000] for an Assistant Professor, 45,000 rubles [$1,500] for a full Professor at Moscow State University’s (MSU) Institute of Asian and African Countries.
- Salaries are 20% higher at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs-affiliated Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) than at the MSU.
- Literally the only institution where Russian Sinologists get an internationally respectable salary is at the Higher School of Economics – salaries of 150,000-200,000 rubles ($5,000-$6,500) are not atypical.
Things are even worse outside the capital. Saint-Petersburg State University, the second most prominent China Studies center in Russia outside Moscow, had to close down a program on the Chinese economy around 2011 due to lack of financing, and the third center of Russian Sinology, the Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, closed down its Eastern Institute, an organziation that traced back its lineage to Tsarist times, at around the same time.
Only a few dozen scientific articles on China are produced per year, and their quality lags English language output, even though the latter produces orders of magnitude more material. Many of their articles aren’t even open access; a significant percentage are merely reference works for the country’s leaderships, prepared whenever there are big summits or other major state events in China. Furthermore, many articles aren’t indexed by international databases. “We do not subscribe to the Journal of Contemporary China, it’s too expensive. From 1991 the state doesn’t finance any international scientific partnerships. Not a ruble on literature, on travel, only just the occasional grant for a conference or a book…” says Vladimir Portnyakov, another deputy director of the Institute. New literature is acquired by renting out the Institute’s properties, which have emptied out as a result of so many people leaving after 1991.
Consequently, there is large-scale brain drain amongst young researchers to the private sector, or abroad (it is noted that Israel has seen large improvements in its Sinology in recent years, in no small part thanks to immigrants from Russia – even though, I would add, other business sectors have to the contrary seen a “backflow” from Israel back to Moscow in the past decade). Even those those specialists who stay on have to spread themselves out across multiple institutes to make a halfway decent living, leaving no time for research.
This has also resulted in a generational chasm within the Sinologist community; there are hardly any serious middle-aged researchers. Although there are several respectable Sinologists over the age of fifty who were produced in the USSR: Alexander Lomanov, Sergey Luzyanin, Andrey Ostrovsky, Vladimir Portyakov, Viktor Larin, Alexey Voskresensky, Vladimir Korsun, Andrey Karneev, Alexander Lukin, Mikhail Karpov, Nikolay Samoylov, Alexey Maslov – the author could name only one significantly younger figure, Vasily Kashin, at the CAST thinktank.
The state of affairs is no better at the state level
The main source of China talent in Russia is in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Gabuev’s sources mention several particularly competent people: Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, Thailand ambassador Kirill Barsky, China ambassador Andrey Denisov, and a few other members of the Russian diplomatic staff in China. (This makes sense; in one of my Twitter conversations with Chinese Russianist Xin Zhang, he pointed out that “one related problem is agenda for bilateral communication between specialists are still highly state-sactioned”). However, according to a business source, this doesn’t apply to people in the lower rungs: “The people at the top level can be okay. But the people on the ground are not the best, in the sense of helping out businesses or even as a source of expertise, they are quite useless.” This reflects the narrow focus of China experts in the Russian state structures, who focus on highly specific areas such as classic “high diplomacy,” nuclear non-proliferation, and the banalities of arranging Putin’s meetings with Chinese leaders. And this is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In contrast, there is almost a singular lack of Sinologists within Russia’s economics-related Ministries.
The situation in the “silovik” agencies is, if anything, even worse. In Russia’s military intelligence, the GRU, there is precisely one (!) analyst working on the Chinese military (before Serdyukov’s reforms, there were two). During the Russian-Chinese military exercises “Maritime Cooperation 2012,” the Chinese had nearly 200 young officers with a solid knowledge of Russian at hand to provide linguistic support; the Russians could only muster three translators. Evidently, the Chinese military has made efforts to build up a large base of Russia expertise, unlike Russia with respect to China. So do bear this in mind whenever you read the next Andrei Martyanov article about Russia’s supposed military dominance over China. Even if that is an accurate assessment – and I have my doubts – do note that there would be almost no-one to translate intercepted Chinese communications within the Russian Army (hopefully the Americans don’t block access to Google Translate).
I would note that many of these observations are backed up by the aforementioned Xin Zhang, who in 2014 corrected me on my prior belief that the state of Sinology and Russianology in Russia and China were similarly dismal: “… likely more Russian experts in China than the other way… In Shanghai, we held conferences & seminars in Russian, although translation is needed for some participants.”
No China expertise in the media
Both RIA and ITER-TASS only had around half a dozen journalists each in their Beijing bureaus as of when Gabuev wrote his articles. None of Russia’s major broadsheets, even the “serious” ones like Kommersant and Vedomosti, have a presence on the ground in China. For comparison, major Western news agencies have bureaus of 15-20 people in Beijing, as well as employees in the provincial centers. It also far less than the attention China devotes to Russia: There are 70 people in the Xinhua bureau in Moscow. Consequently, there is far less news about China in the Russian press relative to the other major countries. I would also add as an observer of both the Western and Russian media that much of it basically consists of reprints of Western coverage of China, as opposed to original journalism.
The business sector isn’t interested either
Despite China being Russia’s largest trading partner – and its main bulwark against more serious Western sanctions – Russia’s state corporations aren’t rushing to avail themselves of China expertise, with predictable consequences – Gabuev cites a $3.5 billion loss in Rosneft from an unsuccessful pipeline to China, and Gazprom’s repeated failed attempts to enter the Chinese gas markets. Neither is the situation in the private sector much better. There only partial exceptions to this dismal picture are nuclear power monopoly Rosatom and development bank Vnesheconombank in the state sector, and Deripaska’s En+ Group in the private sector.
Certainly there is nothing on the scale of Chinese business analysis of Russia, such as that of the Chinese state-owned oil company CNPC. Not only does it maintain a large in-house staff of Russia specialists composed of Chinese Russia experts, Russian China Studies majors, and catches from the Chinese bureaucracy and security services, but it even orders reports from thinktanks on topics such as the “prospects of Russia’s political system to 2024 and its influence on Russia’s oil sector.”
Can one imagine anything like this under Rosneft’s Igor Sechin? To ask the question is to answer it.
There are very few instances of state bureacracies or corporations ordering expert analyses from Russian academia, as is typical in both China and the West. “The state has simply left Sinology. And this is a huge mistake. In China, the opposite is happening – the state is developing Russia Studies,” says Alexey Maslov, dean of Oriental Studies faculty at the Higher School of Economics (and a shaolin master). On the other hand, business and bureaucrats aren’t too satisfied with the academic Sinologist community either. “There is no practical benefit from communicating with them. You ask them a simple question, and they start their answer from the time of the Yellow Emperor, and don’t end up clarifying anything. Typical professors,” says one federal bureaucrat.
The future of Russian Sinology
Alexander Gabuev wrote these articles four years ago. In the meantime, the author himself – who can be considered somewhat of a China expert himself – left Kommersant to work for the US-financed Moscow Carnegie Center thinktank, which also happens to be the most highly rated thinktank in Russia. One can consider this as just one more depressing anecdote in the context of all the dismal things he wrote about Russian Sinology and social science in general.
The following is based largely on my own impressions.
In the years since 2012-13, the situation of Russian academia has improved, especially in the elite universities that are part of Project 5/100 – the state program to get five universities into the world’s top 100 (currently, only Moscow State University qualifies, and that by a hairsbreadth). Salaries there are now quite respectable, and are at least minimally comparable to those at the Higher School of Economics. However, I suspect financing at the Russian Academy of Science, at least if my impressions of the Institute of Psychology are anything to go by, remains catastrophically low.
There has also been a massive increase in the numbers of Russians studying Chinese in the past two decades. Whereas there were just 5,000 Russians studying Chinese in 1997, by 2007 it was 17,000, and by 2017 there were close to 56,000 of them (this is not entirely bad by comparison with the 200,000 Chinese learners in the United States, many of whom I suspect are Chinese-Americans).
On the other hand, the average quality of Chinese instruction in Russia leaves much to be desired, so optimism is premature. As Alexander Gabuev also pointed out in 2013, quoting Alexey Maslov: “Today we have more than 160 universities that offer Chinese… But many of these people are almost impossible to use in real life. This creates the impression that we have a lot of Sinologists. But in reality, they are not Sinologists, their level of Chinese language knowledge is very low.”
Nonetheless, the overall situation does seem to be improving, even if at a slow rate and from a very low base. And there’s no obvious reason for things to get worse.
However, so long as Putin remains more interested in financing the Rotenbergs than RAN – for instance, the planned bridge to Sakhalin might consume about as much money per year as the entire federal budget for science – there can be no serious talk of Russia starting to produce a lot of world-beating research in Sinology or any other brance of science.
Is that a result of collapse in the 1990s? I’d have assumed that there was a lot of expertise on China in the Soviet Union, given the intensive Chinese-Soviet cooperation in the 1950s and then decades of strong rivalry after the Sino-Soviet split…was that expertise all thrown away, or was it never very good anyway?
Both, really, though I think the 1990s collapse of course did more damage.
Soviet Sinology was strongly tied to the state’s needs, and also under ideological strictures (how can you develop your China expertise if you can’t even visit the country? or cooperate with researchers from non-socialist countries? or write objectively about Deng Xiaoping’s reforms?). Still, there were as you point out a considerable number of them, since the USSR did fund social science at a modest level and had a strong need for China specialists.
Most of these “sovok” constrains disappeared in the 1990s, of course. But everything else (especially $$$) disappeared then as well, and was only partially restored under Putin (who frankly cares more for bridges, football stadiums, etc than this sort of egghead thing).
Regarding China-Russia links and a topic our host Anatoly Karlin also sometime touches upon – ‘ZOG’ – it’s notable that in China, unbeknownst to most people, Mao Zedong had Russia-linked Jewish Communist advisers so close to him, they became top Chinese ministers and members of China’s ruling politburo!
We all know about the many Jewish figures involved in the Bolshevik Revolution, as AK has also described … but something similar was true of China, tho Jews there in Beijing were largely imported. Foreign Jewish figures were close aides to Mao even before he took power. For example, Polish-born Jew Israel Epstein became Mao’s powerful Minister of Appropriations handling key financial matters, & knew later Chinese leaders up through Hu Jintao, when Epstein died in his 90s. Sidney Shapiro – politburo member! – and ‘Chen Bidi’, Sidney Rittenberg, Virginius Frank Coe, Rewi Alley also served Mao closely despite being of foreign-Jewish origin.
For a page with photos and detail on Mao Zedong’s many Jewish collaborators helping to run China, see ‘The Secret Role of Jews in China’
Plus note that today, China, Russia, the USA & Israel are all closely linked thru one man, the 20th-wealthiest person in the world. Netanyahu’s sponsor Sheldon Adelson, not only dominates Israeli media – he makes the greatest part of his billions in Macao China in partnership with Beijing – he hobnobs with Putin’s Chabad & Jewish billionaire friends in Moscow – and Adelson controls much of the dominant Republican party in the USA … a factoid which anyone should consider before making too much out of alleged ‘East-West rivalry’. As Antony Sutton pointed out half a century ago, documenting how the USA was supplying tech to the Soviets – with Israel a key transfer agent – big power ‘rivalry’ is mostly a show.
There was and still is but Anatoly being who he is continues to pull here all kind of pseudo-academic BS such as this Carnegie’s Gabuev. Per military technology and pretty much anything related to military, this is all is just a typical ignorant rant.
Military-intelligence field always was excellent re: China.
After mentioning CAST the rest of this article cannot be read seriously.
Why? What is CAST and why is it deficient?
(not that I would be qualified to evaluate the matter, but maybe other commenters are).
They are probably most famous for producing one of the most highly cited military analyses of the South Ossetian War (The Tanks of August, English version)
More germane to this post, they – including the aforementioned Kashin – also wrote what is probably the definitive guide to the Chinese defense industry in the Russian language (The Defense Industry and Arms Trade of China) at a level of detail comparable to a prominent RAND report.
Ok, so they’re actually good at analysing China (I suppose I misunderstood Martyanov then), thanks for the reply.
No, you didn’t misunderstand him, he has his own specific (unbeknownst to me) reasons for having a low opinion of CAST.
So far as I can see it is one of the few Russian thinktanks that regularly produces high quality content (and doesn’t use my money to do it).
It is a typical representative of what became known as “liberal” military-political “analysis” organization created by couple MGIMO graduates (no background in any serious military affairs whatsoever–except some French “institute”). Another person of “interest” there is Mikhail Barabanov whom I personally not for once, exposed as a fraud and a liar. He, being a graduate of Culture Institute with degree in movie criticism or some shit like that, is known for, without serving a single minute in any Armed Forces , a peculiar use of mathematics to a “critique” of the Soviet Navy, among many things. The same goes for all kinds of Falgenhauers, Goltzs, Gabuevs, Masha Gessens, Prosvirnins and people of this “scholarship” who basically intermingle (opinions-wise and physically) non stop in a very specific faux-intellectual environment. Some “pearls” by CAST, especially re: doctrinal development are tour de force’ of ignorance in both military and technological field. This is TYPICAL for Karlin’s “sources”. It is also exhibit A of one of the main reasons why combined West is today where it is in terms of so called “Russian Studies”–which, they admit themselves, is a disaster. This is the level (rather lack thereof) and scope of “study” as exhibited in this piece (and many others) by Karlin.
I would love to add to this comment of yours but I will not. But word “qualified” is a key here.
Where did that ‘15,000’ sinologists figure come from?
The American Association for Chinese Studies does not publish membership figures. They did, however, publish the number of registrants at their most recent annual conference. The number was 120.
The American Political Science Association has no China section nor any areal section which would include China. (They have a long list of sections, but only two areal sections, neither covering Asia)
The American Anthropological Association has an East Asia section. The section does not publish membership numbers. They did indicate in a brief historical note that they grew out of a listserv that had 200-400 signed up.
The American Sociological Association has an Asian section, but they do not publish membership counts.
The American Historical Association does not appear to have membership sections
None of the American Academy of Religion’s ‘program units’ focus on China (or any place in the Far East north of VietNam).
The number of doctorates awarded each year in this country in Chinese language and literature is in the single digits, consistent with fewer than 300 academicians.
The total number of history and social research faculty is 136,000, of which 50,000 are in disciplines (psychology and economics) which really have no areal component. There are two and only two social research disciplines wherein the number of postsecondary teachers exceeds 15,000, and that’s psychology and history. With scant doubt, a comfortable majority of historians in this country specialize in North America or Europe. As for psychology, cross-cultural psychologists make up a small sliver of academicians.
IIRC, the total number of Foreign Service officers is in the low four digits, and that includes all four cones of the service (political, economic, administrative, and consular).
Thanks for the answer; as stated above I can’t judge the matter, but it’s certainly good to know that the output of this think tank might be of dubious quality.
We have been through that before. I repeat:
All of people in CAST are slightly older versions of you and the only thing they can “sell” is, due to their geographic location, some “shuffle” with some names from Russian “siloviki” environment. In general, they are tabloid and not a think-tank. Their record, especially their “recommendations” of which I had been unfortunate to read is primarily an amateur crap.
One cannot become a professional, especially military professional, by studying international relations (which is easy) and not studying systems integration and operational research (which are very hard). I omit here an ultimate requirement of actual service.
Again–you don’t know what “high quality content” in military issues is.
Why do you want a ‘bridge to Sakhalin’? Why not upgrade the ferry service and intra-island transit service?
We have been through that before. I repeat:1. People with degrees in political faux-science and, basically, any branch of Liberal Arts with some rarest exceptions, are not capable to understand any serious geopolitical and military issues. A
Any at all? Why do you wish to persuade people to stop reading what you say?
At the “dawn” of “in earnest” internet starting, Mr.Barabanov was known (in 2001-2006) as a main doctrine-monger on a number of public forums. He was known for a huge number fairy tales on both US and Soviet navies. Actually, he was simply lying about modern US Naval history and was pouring buckets of lies and BS on Soviet Navy. Mr. Barabanov is, evidently, some sort of disabled person–so NO military service. In 2004 I had enough with him and after his next magnum opus about Russian Navy I publicly responded to his BS. I have reasons to believe that he reads me (both what I publish and my blog) but a number of his lies have been exposed, especially about US Navy. Barabanov is also known for classic quote: “I know better issues of strategy than any naval officer”(c). Evidently he knew even better than Elmo Zumwalt. Indeed, what this guy Zumwalt being a CNO really knew (sarcasm). The guy is a movie critic by trade. Do you see a pattern? Mr. Pukhov and the other guy from CAST are typical representatives of utterly failed “western” approach to military analysis–we observe results of this “analysis” today. Including massive reversal of Serdykov’s so called “reforms” supported by precisely the kind of public Karlin uses as his “sources”. But then again, very few knowledgeable people argue today with the fact of a catastrophic decline of cognitive faculties across the board in the West.
This a discussion board–you don’t like what I write, don’t read me. If you can counter my claim (you can’t)–do it, we’ll talk.
Andrei Martyanov:
Leaving aside for now Elmo Zumwalt’s “strategies”, I do know that Zumwalt imposed draconian PC-type procedures on the US Navy even prior to the acronym’s invention.
I sure don’t, you should address this question to the kremlins.
You want to see Zumwalt “strategies”–ask yourself a question how UGM(BGM)-109 and 84 appeared in US Navy, the same as Los Angeles-class SSNs and FFG of Oliver H. Perry-class, among many other things. If you think that the US White and Black separate Navies was a normal state of the affairs, including a complete breakdown of discipline by the end of 1960s in it, well–I have no comments. Although, I have to admit that his Z-Gram “Since today we don’t have White Navy, we don’t have Black Navy anymore, we only have the United States Navy” is rather an impressive statement of command.
Your claim is that people who study political life know nothing of political life (but that engineers do). It’s self-countering.
My claim is that people who study “political life” (especially if it is done in the US institutions) know nothing and can not on the nature of military power, its application (war, warfare) and are absolutely unqualified to pass ANY judgements on any military-technological issue. That is my claim. I don’t care about “knowledge” of who and when and why won by a landslide in some state and on what agenda–that doesn’t require any degrees and could easily be self-taught by anyone with an average intelligence and good common educational background. I repeat again, quote myself:
There is NO understanding of any military, hence geopolitical, issue without serious military background. Serious military background requires an extremely serious training in STEM for a warm up.
Translation: only people like Andrei Martyanov can understand geopolitical issues.
So no understanding of serious geopolitical issues without serious military background?
Hmmm.. Some names that come to mind:
Kissinger, like many of his generation, was enlisted during World War II. He was never an officer. His background was in academics, political science at Harvard. No STEM background.
Samuel Huntington – served in the army at age 18, but academic non-STEM background.
Primakov – academic, journalist and intelligence background. Not a serious military or STEM background.
Mackinder – sometimes considered the founder of geopolitics- academic background, did have a degree in biology but also history and economics
Brzezinski – pure academic background, no military or STEM
More cultural misunderstanding.
http://akirakurosawa.info/2012/10/30/review-all-the-emperors-men/
Think a moment on why is it that “Americanology” or “Germanology” are not things that exist, and you’ll soon realize why “Sinology” or “Kremlinology” shouldn’t either.
Excellent question.
https://twitter.com/AlexGabuev/status/934985310928359425
The problem with Putin is, that he looks impressive in comparison to most (all?) Western leaders. But the Chinese leadership looks better than him.
This seems relevant: http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/why-do-we-keep-writing-about-chinese-politics-if-we-know-more-we-do
Not to argue Russia is better off, and that anti-intellectualism doesn’t have its problems.
The advantage of the US is that it can attract people like Ling Zhence, which have more valuable expertise than those 15k sinologists combined. Right now the only hot avenues of research in Western academia is ethnic minorities and Sinoqueer studies. Bioleninism and all that.
Germany and Globalism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48BX_c50-n0
In the contemporary West “intellectualism” long ago became not a measure of being right or wrong, which only matters, but of making an “argument”, an ability to come up with a “construct” which looks and feels “intellectual” due to it “sophistication” (what goes into it–is a separate matter). Like in the current economy which is “described” in the West by numerous indices, most of them being fraudulent, same goes across the board from country study (China, Russia, India, Vietnam what have you) to military. The outcome, the truth–doesn’t matter as long as an “argument” is “sophisticated”. It has a lot to do with a crucial difference between information and knowledge, especially in the fields such as humanities or liberal arts, which are most vulnerable to demagoguery and “noise”.
I don’t know about a man you describe–I am not a specialist in China, but your exaggeration about 15 000 (marked in bold) is, actually, legitimate. Far from Sinology, look at the results of Western Russology–a disaster.
Sinoqueer studies. Buzzfeed might have to start stealing catchphrases from you.
And yes, one can hardly look up English news on China without hitting a “this gender-neutral person is challenging Chinese beliefs” or “Confucianism defined through the lens of feminism!”
I dunno, I would bet on Putin against Xi in a judo contest.
I agree with your general point that you need much more than a background in Liberal Arts or International Relations in order to grasp military matters properly. You obviously need a sound grasp of military science and technology, as well military systems. It undoubtedly helps very much if you have considerable military experience yourself.
Very few commentators tick all the boxes. One who springs to mind is Major Gordon Corrigan, whose WWI books are excellent. The late Professor John Erickson , was another. All too often, you get puffed up, ignorant wee ***** like Francis Tusa instead.
Aren’t you relying a bit too much on the handshakeable Gabuev?
Why was Medvedev distraughted? Modern Russian elite has neglected for decades relations with China compared to the relations with the West. It is a logical consequence of that.
That is still EUrope: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113440.pdf
He has a point. How useful is Sinology, anyway?
That is more encouraging than more Sinology.
Segregated armed forces was the normal state of affairs in the US Armed Forces from the very first service of the US Colored Troops. The segregated US Armed Forces won the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and both World Wars.
The integrated armed forces went on to draw in Korea, lose in Vietnam, lose in Iraq 2, and are well en route to losing Afghanistan.
Integration isn’t necessarily the reason our armed forces lost these conflicts, but there is nothing whatsoever to recommend integration other than irrational and fundamentally untrue blank slateism.
A better solution than integrating the armed forces, provided one has an irrational problem with segregation, would be to simply expel all the blacks from the service.
Politically unrealistic of course, but let’s not pretend that integration had any positive effects for military efficacy or indeed any facet of America at all.
And the rot didn’t stop with racial integration–not long after Zumwalt retired women were admitted to the armed forces. On warships they have a shocking habit of getting knocked up whenever vessels deploy. Now we are to further accept the glorious service of homo-sexuals, and if not for President Trump mentally ill transsexuals as well.
I suspect the works of, for instance, Arthur Jensen and Robert Putnam, just aren’t “STEM” enough for you and therefore are completely discounted by you.
I can parry your constant attacks on Karlin as an American (fair attack–though like much of the modern Russian diaspora he never identified as American and to his credit repatriated). As a Russian, you are perhaps not competent to comment on American race relations or the many deficiencies of blacks.
I bought everything you said until this part. The USSR really had it out for Israel. Why would they have worked so hard to destroy Israel if Israel was providing them with valuable tech?
You’re not a coward, you’re a rational person. By all means learn a foreign language. But learning Chinese should not suddenly transmogrify ( look it up in the dictionary, if you must ) you into a Sinologist, as if you’ve suddenly become a member of a secret society. And that’s all too often how Sinologists conduct themselves. They’re in love with the history/culture/government of China and feel very protective, not to say uncritical, of the same. Its like that other -ology, Egyptology. Why didn’t Ancient Egypt survive ? Because it had no idea of material progress. Not something any Egyptologist will tell you.
You can study Chinese Language and History without subscribing to Sinology. John Derbyshire exemplifies the point. There is obviously a little bit of China he dearly loves – he married her, dear reader – but he is scathing about the stuff he hates – like the CCP, pollution, corruption etc.
Chinese Language, History etc should be studied like Spanish Language, History etc or any other foreign language or study. The false cult of Sinology should not get in the way of treating China in a clear-sighted manner.
OOPS Should have been reply to 24 Anonymous Coward
You and I have had a couple of arguments over the importance of debt in China’s private sector with your position being that it basically doesn’t matter and mine being that it is a catastrophe in the making.
I had assumed that your position was the consensus among the Chinese elite but I recently saw an interview with some big shot from whatever China calls their version of the Federal Reserve, and his position was essentially, “The debt situation is really bad and it’s gonna be a tough adjustment but we’ll live.”
I was surprised to see a regime guy openly say something that wasn’t just sunshine and rainbows. I was also impressed that apparently the Chinese are taking the problem seriously.
It got me thinking that China has one big advantage that Japan and the US didn’t have for their debt crisis’: China’s currency is pegged to the dollar, so they can just drop the peg and let their currency collapse. If the yuan were to lose, say, 65% of it’s value, then all of a sudden China’s ~230% private-debt to GDP ratio resets back to around 100% of GDP, which is where China was before they started their debt binge in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008.
Now as we know from Argentina, there can be short terms downsides to trashing your currency. So my question to you is, if China elects to detonate the yuan, will the Chinese public take the short term pain lying down? The Argentinian government had no credibility with the public, so large scale unrest resulted. But you have indicated that the Chinese public trusts and supports the Communists so do you think China could pull off what Argentina couldn’t?
As China has developed more, it is beginning to get too expensive to manufacture cheap crap in China and that has hurt China’s exports. If the yuan sinks, however, all of a sudden China becomes an even greater exporting powerhouse than it already is. Argentina couldn’t play that card. And furthermore, Argentina was printing money to cover it’s fiscal deficit whereas China would never do such a thing, so instead of seeing Argentian hyperinflation, what is more likely is that Chinese consumers see a one time, massive loss in purchasing power. A similar thing happened in the US in 33 when the gov quasi defaulted by abandoning the gold standard and nothing bad happened, so maybe it will go the same way for China.
For my part, I’m undecided. I could see it working out for China, but I just am not feeling it in my bones. That said, as recently as a week ago I was certain of a regime shaking crisis so maybe I’m coming around.
I don’t see a devaluation as being a big deal for Chinese living standards; the ruble plummeted by 50% in 2014, but living standards were only modestly affected (Russia produces most essential goods domestically; this is, of course, even more true in China; only the sort of people who needed to have the latest iPhone were sad).
Actually, Martyanov lives in the United States, like myself until a year ago (not doxxing; he has said as much himself here and at his blog).
Don’t you agree that there is something hypocritical about voluntarily moving to a country that you hate?
I obviously didn’t mean judo, but even there, Xi is much bigger, so with minimal training he should be fine against Putin.
The debt is mostly internal – for example, heavily state-influenced banks lending to state-owned enterprises, but its often a sign of extant or emerging zombie companies, which is why the government is trying to get a handle on it. For example, banks still routinely lend to state owned enterprises because they realize that rationally, the state will never default on them. This is good for the banks, bad for getting capital into productive sectors.
As far as for support for the CCP, it is heavily linked to prosperity so if hard times hit, you would see more stress and unrest. But there really isn’t an alternative: Taiwan certainly isn’t looking like a model, the US appears to have contracted national ADHD, and Singapore is a tiny city-state, to name a few. So before we see some sort of regime shaking crisis, you’d have to see the living standard drop to the level where that’s a reasonable step to take.
I don’t see that happening. As AK noted, China has a huge domestic economy in terms of production and you’ll see more pork and rice, less beef and other imports, but I doubt that’s a reason for revolt. Fundamentally as far as the Chinese go, I think that usually causes huge unrest is when there is major losses in “cultural confidence” as was during the end of the Qing, etc. There’s a lot of complaining going on in Chinese social media, etc, but there the sense of cultural confidence at present is pretty high with most of the complaints something like “Why aren’t we doing even better? “
Well, one could say that the country he hates ruined his own country and as a result one can only live better in the country one hates.
Don’t you agree that there is something hypocritical about voluntarily moving to a country that you hate?
AM loves him some USA, said so right here in a comment.
I think he is just ticked off because we won’t let him be Secretary of Defense.
AM hates America and it comes through in every post he makes. If he ever did say that he loves America that would have about as much weight as me saying that I love Iran.
As the commenter who made the original query, I’m glad I got a more in depth answer Mr. Karlin. It is very much appreciated
Regarding your dig at Mr. Martyanov, I can second your theory in that he doesn’t really know what he is talking about because his lack of knowledge on the subject matter is just so glaring that it is as they say “not even wrong”.
I didn’t get a chance to reply to this comment in an earlier post because I missed it, but the ignorance of Chinese military industrial policy and purchasing decisions in this regard screams out for a response. The reason why the Chinese choose domestic variants of Russian export weapons is because of two issues. The first issue is that Chinese direct military purchases of Russian hardware are generally driven to meet immediate tactical considerations rather than any long term plan on building a military along Russian lines. Ever since the Sino-Soviet split and the withdraw of Soviet industrial assistance, the PLA has always emphasized reliance on domestic capabilities unless the need was immediately pressing because they were painfully aware of how cripling foreign dependancy was on combat readiness. Leading into this first issue is that because they only buy when they must, they only buy hardware that is able to be operationalized immediately. That means they won’t buy new development projects that rosoboronexport pitches that the Russian military doesn’t use. They don’t want to deal with the headaches of working out the inevitable glitches and troubles with new hardware when they can simply buy something that the Russians already have experience in trouble shooting. It is a very conservative approach completly at odds with Russia’s other primary customer, namely India. An example of this was demonstrated in an interview with the head of the Russian North Sea(?) ship design bureau carried at bmpd.livejournal regarding Russian and Chinese shipbuilding cooperation during the late 90’s. Basically the Russians had pitched the same new Krivak class frigates that were eventually sold to India to China as well but were turned down. The interviewee expressed his opinion that the new frigates were a more well rounded design but Chinese were adamant on the purchase of the incomplete Sovremenny class destroyers of Soviet vintage that were capable of delivering a heavy anti-ship missile capable of knocking out American carriers. Though not explained by the interviewee, the reason for this was because of the aforementioned Chinese preference for tested Soviet hardware and because of the immediate need for an anti-carrier capability in the aftermath of the third Taiwan straits crisis of 1996. The PLA was spooked about prospect of immediate hostilities over Taiwan with the US and needed an immediate response. Thus the Sovremenny’s that were commissioned in 1999.
The Su-35 purchase that Martyanov talked about is another example of missing the obvious because the information to make sound assessments is so incomplete. I have seen all sorts of rationals from reverse engineering it, to extended range in the South China Sea to, the J-20 not being up to snuff but what everyone has missed out on is the obvious. The small purchase, a single aviation brigade of 24 fighters when the PLAAF/PLANAF operate more than 500 flanker variants, came delivered in a very particular camouflage pattern. The problem is that the Chinese air force doesn’t use camouflage patterns in it’s aircraft and have been for two decades now using a dary grey for the air force and a very light grey for naval aviation assets. The only camouflaged fighter aircraft that are operational with the PLAAF that have a camouflage pattern exist in only one organization; the “Blue” opfor regiment operated by the FTTC. In fact the aircraft camouflage was identical in both pattern and color to the flankers used by the Vietnamese People’s Air Force which inadvertantly says much about the Chinese threat assessment of where conflict is most likely. That the Chinese would seemingly inexplicably insist on all the instrumentation being in Russian is no longer so inexplicable once you know the intended reason for the purchase of such a limited number of aircraft (The Chinese reportedly wanted to buy even less but the Russians insisted on a minimum order). The Su-35, being the most capable aircraft that the VVS presently operates (as opposed to the development project sold to the Indians) are intended as opposition aircraft for dissimilar air combat training and to this end they were chosen in a configuration to simulate as closely as possible potential foreign adversaries.
Egypt at the time of pyramid bulding was very nasty esp. on the personal liberty front. NK is benign by comparison.
Not to sound like an SJW but we have come a long way as a race.
There’s something I find superficially very plausible about bicameralism. I wouldn’t be surprised if science one day found out there has been some genetic selection for greater individuality and self-awareness in the past couple millennia.
This explains his good English, and it also suggests that permanent immigration of Russians should be prohibited (and no one can accuse me of Russophobia).
There’s a general problem that modern Russian immigrants don’t seem to identify as American ever.
At least you repatriated.
Perhaps it improves with their children of course.
Doubtless America’s hostile foreign policy makes this problem worse, but that just shows the problem of immigration even more. I don’t favor our current Russophobic foreign policy, but we have a sovereign right to pursue such a policy and should not have to worry about the loyalties of ethnic Russians within our borders.
That our leaders think it prudent to attack foreign countries while simultaneously welcoming their nationals as immigrants says a lot about the fantasy world they inhabit.
“Invade the world, invite the world.” -Steve Sailer
There is nothing more fascinating than people who try to preach a complete BS. Here is why what you posted here is BS.
Now:
SU-35 is purchased by China for two reasons:
a) Irbis radar;
b) Thrust-vectored engines.
In both cases China is generation or two behind Russia.
Russia sold to China a regiment–two squadrons of SU-35s together with this:
http://tass.com/defense/932131
It has nothing to do with aggressor squadrons and Russians are keenly aware of China getting SU-35s, as was the case with ANY Soviet/Russian-made military technology, for copying. In this case it was clearly stated to China–either you buy our quantity or you don’t get it at all. It is a 2 billion dollar contract–not a pocket change by any means. Even Majumdar had to admit and I quote:
https://scout.com/military/warrior/Article/Why-is-China-Buying-Russian-Su-35-Fighter–101457513
China doesn’t have real 5th generation fighter, not does China have world-class engine and it is not expected any time soon. So, please, spare this BS and hot air for some other places. Even today Chinese Air Force flies 300+ ancient Mig-21s and even what passes in China as a “genuine” light fighter aka Chengdu J-10 was developed with the help of Russians and Israelis. Per PLAN–I have nothing to discuss here. Chinese submarine force so far is a joke. China has a long-long way before it will be able to NOT-harvest Russian military technology for own purposes, however ridiculous excuses, such as your camouflage “explanation”, will be. Ask yourself a question, who also will get a wide body CR 929 and its PD-35 engines designed. Also compare COMAC C919 and MC-21, which bird spends more time in the air and is ready for serial production.
As spandrell pointed out, perhaps it is a good thing that Russia doesn’t have as many China “experts” as the US does. A lot of these people aren’t just bad, they are actual idiots. Writes about pointless bullshit like the Chinese state’s hostility towards feminism. Western journalists stationed in China are even worse. These people aren’t even there to report anything, they’re there more as missionaries expounding the need for more liberalism and democracy. Except they’re even worse than Christian missionaries because back in the dynastic days Christian missionaries actually had useful knowledge on astronomy and were employed by the court. These days, the new missionaries have no useful skills to speak of. They aren’t even good at proselytizing. Completely worthless bunch.
Just when I was beginning to feel a little sorry for dog piling on you along with everyone else…
The Chinese never attempted to reverse engineer the AL-31F. I don’t know why some people insist this is so despite the obvious. The Chinese WS-10 series engines powering China’s domestic flanker variants was actually a derivative of a US origin military turbofan. The inlet diameter, intake guide vanes, blade configuration, compressor stages, afterburner assembly, bypass ratios, etc are wildly dissimilar to the Russian engine. Anything more than a passing visual inspection will show you that it is a different engine. Also considering that more than 400+ engines are now operational powering half of the Chinese flanker fleet, the word you are looking for is “successful” rather than disastrous.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xZ27fuSBGSo/ULJLt2cON5I/AAAAAAAAAdw/HZsIs8nHYJA/s1600/Al-31F_WA10A_comparison.jpg
Majumdar is an idiot and the fact that you are quoting him of all people really shows how little you know. The Chinese being “2 generations” behind the Russians somehow have operational AESA radars aboard the J-10C, J-16, and J-20. Just last week, Chinese state television showed images of an AESA radar being flight tested for the latest iteration of the JF-17 low cost export fighter. Russia’s first AESA for the Su-57 is still developmental and all other non-operational radars have been nothing more than mockups. The Irbis-E is the best radar the VVS operates today and it is still a passive scan radar rather than active. This is one area where China was able to leverage dual use technology and it’s giant electronics industry to maximum effect. The Russian semiconductor industry, never really competitive to begin with even under the Soviet Union, simply isn’t in any financial position to even maintain parity let alone be 2 generations ahead. I’m really beginning to feel like arguing with you is a waste of time if all you are going to do is engage in shrill easily refuted histrionics. It’s like arguing with a monkey. No matter if you “win”, you are still going to end up covered in poo.
I don’t think this is specific to Russians. The White Russians assimilated like any other European ethnic group – better in fact than Italians (crime) or the Irish (political corruption). Their economic, educational, etc. indicators were also some of the best (though this had a lot to do with the high human capital of those who fled the Revolution). I have known several descendants of White Russian families; they uniformly consider themselves to be Americans. To the extent that they identify with Russia its through purely kitschy forms like Saint Patrick’s Day for the Irish.
(Extreme example: Germans have a great reputation for assimilating. Yet even so, it’s worth pointing out that their opposition played a part in delaying US entry in WW1, and even as late as the 1930s, you had the German American Bund, numbering 25,000, that pushed the interests of an ideologically hostile state. That was about 50 years after the peak of German immigration to the US!)
However, history moves on, and what was correct in the past may no longer be so today. Modern communications technologies make it much easier to maintain global national communities, so full assimilation is more optional than it was before. Moreover, since the United States itself has ceased insisting on assimilation for its minorities, and instead sponsors their national consciousness through various [ethnic group] Studies programs, this understandably demoralizes even the more conscientious immigrants and undermines their will to Americanize.
And of course as you point out the fact of US hostility towards Russia means that the ethnic Russian diaspora may come to constitute a high-risk group for espionage, like the Chinese have long been.
However, even this is mitigated by two factors. First, there just aren’t that many Russian-Americans who think of themselves as Russian (the White Russians have long since assimilated; most of the rest are frankly the children of professors who came during the 1990s brain drain). Second, you may be pleased to know that the US does have a sane policy wrt Russian espionage. People who should be in a position to know have told me that it is virtually impossible for immigrant Russians to find jobs at institutions/sectors requiring high level security clearances, e.g. anything to do with nuclear weapons.
I have also met some Russian immigrants who aggressively “American”, as in, they actually took that citizenship stuff seriously. Did you have any experience with Russians like that before you left the US?
Ling Zhengce (had a typo there) is the brother of big fish Ling Jihua, who is now prisoner of Xi Jinping on charges of corruption. Rumor has it brother Zhengce took with him a shitload of secret data on pretty much everything in China (some say he has the placement of all Chinese nukes) and fled to America. He’s now playing golf at some army installation in Texas.
Agreed about noise in Western academia.
J-20 is nothing more than a 4 generation fighter with cured carbon fiber all over it to give it appearance of a 5th generation one. Chinese engines, all of them without exception are shit–it is axiom, it is not even a theorem. It is widely accepted fact with people who have any understanding of air force technology. Basically, NO high-end military technology in China is of Chinese origin–it is all knock offs, mostly Soviet/Russian. Some Israeli and some American. There is NOT a single indigenous Chinese weapon system which either has been combat tested or has universally recognized reputation for high quality. None, zero. Only Chinese claims–precisely an activity you are engaged now with me. Paradoxically, it is precisely J-20 which shows the failure of Chinese aerospace. No respectable military analyst views this jalopy as a genuine 5th generation fighter. You can blow your hot air elsewhere in China. Now I will rephrase the situation with SU-35 if you still continue to live in delusion–it was bought by China (who stayed in those negotiation for years) because Russia wouldn’t sell anything related to SU-57 which is totally beyond Chinese technological capabilities. The same as Chinese pathetic capabilities in civilian aviation (compare flight hours and IOC for COMAC 919 and MC-21) and that is why China effectively outsourced CR 929–from design to PD-35 engines to Russia. Here is a piece of history of WS-10 for ya:
But if you don’t like Wiki, which I may give you that–not a best source, at least try this:
http://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/china/ChinaPerspectives-4.pdf
No ideology, just technical facts. Per Su-57 radar, dream on. I like the “mock up” thing.
Per naval technology, despite a bulk of DDGs which PLAN builds, Chinese submarine forces are a joke, especially its nukes–nosy and sitting ducks for any competent modern navy. I was asked once what would happen if PLAN and Japan Navy went head to head–my answer was very simple–Japanese (world-class) submarine force would decimate PLAN.
I don’t doubt it for a second, that you already made sure for me being covered “in poo” regardless of “win”, although I am not fighting you–I merely state cold hard facts of China being quite behind in both military and civilian aviation of global leaders in the field. What’s next, Chinese space program, from spaceships to suits not being Russian? Say it ain’t so. Per semi-conductors? Dude, update yourself a bit. Guess which processors Russian military is running on? Need a hint? Meanwhile, while we at it–recently anti-diversionary Grachonok equipped with two Chinese-diesels had…. both breaking down thus preventing a completion of State Trials and acceptance of the cutter to service. You mentioned BMPD Blog? here it is, Chinese quality–diesels simply…disintegrated:
http://bmpd.livejournal.com/2515970.html?cut_expand=1&page=2
Scandal, obviously, ensued. You know why–both engines disintegrated on the first launch. Man, I saw a lot of snafus and even FUBARS in Soviet Navy but this is something really special. Yes, I am gladly being covered with “poo”.
LOL, Karlin.
Wrong brother. Both Ling Jihua and Zhengce are in prison. It was another brother, Wancheng that fled to the US.
I’ve always regarded Xi Jinping as a weak president. Personal weakness begets professional weakness. His daughter attended Harvard under an assumed name. The odd thing was, was that she was a transfer student after attending Zhejiang University her freshmen year. International transfers to Harvard basically means the administrators knows the kid is the scion of someone important. Further the transfer also says two things about Xi Jinping. First is that he attempted to keep his daughter away from the degenerate influence of elite Western opinion making by trying to get her to attend a local school. The second is that he failed and it was almost certainly due to the lady macbeth like influence of his status mongering wife. The nagging almost certainly went like this; so and so member on the Politburo standing committee has their grandkid at Yale. Nag Nag Nag. HARVARD. Nag Nag Nag. MIANZHI. That he failed to keep his wife and daughter in line makes me doubt his fitness to lead. That he hasn’t had the entire Ling clan subject to the nine familial exterminations further leads me to believe he is not as powerful as the West claims. Putin at least had his enemies come down with a case of polonium poisoning.
Karlin marked my response to you as Spam but, once (hopefully) it gets approved, you can see it here.
AK: I haven’t and don’t spam/delete not-spam comments.
Totally agree with your posts, great stuff. You clearly know more than me, so I couldn’t have said it any better. Karlin’s article made me think Martynov even before I got to the part where he mentioned him. Russian and Western/American military “watchers” really do have one thing in common: they very clearly absolutely despise Chinese military technology and its recent, massive, achievements.
I want to also immediately point out that I respect Martynov’s expertise on the Russian military and military history especially, but his views on China are simply massively outdated, they are from 10 years ago, if I’m being generous.
China is not, in any way, “two generations” behind Russia in anything in 2017. That kind of nonsense is simply not based on anything at this point. FFS, as you mentioned, J-10C and J-20 (!!!) are both operational.
The whole view is pretty much insane, Chinese electronics industry is not somehow magically behind Russia, it’s the opposite. HUNDREDS of Chinese Flankers have CHINESE engines, while the Russian 5th generation engine has not even been tested on a Su-57 yet.
So how much ahead is Russia even in engine technology, which admittedly is one of the biggest Chinese weaknesses (and it has been MASSIVELY exaggerated as well)? Realistically, maybe a few years. I can absolutely promise you that the Chinese 5th gen engine will not be introduced much later than the Russian one. J-20 is also a huge success, absolutely massive. 4th generation, LMAO.
Martynov is exaggerating the meaning and importance of some very modest imports from Russia. The fact that they’re so low nowadays tells you a LOT about the current state of the Chinese military industry.
I’m not saying that China is necessarily ahead of Russia in military technology, either, just that that they’re roughly at the same level overall. In other words, the Chinese military industry has become modern, internationally competitive. Some people just don’t seem to accept that at all, but just deal with it. Now that J-20 is is operational, in production, and a Type 055 has been launched, among many, many other things, what else needs to happen? Nothing will ever “satisfy” you, for obvious reasons.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention the submarines:
Total nonsense by Martyanov. China will have like, what, 40 modern (improved Kilo and up) diesel subs in 2020, atleast twice as many as Japan and by far the most in the world.
Their Yuan class is excellent. Also, having any nuclear subs is better than having none (Japan has 0). Not to mention that the Type 093 isn’t probably even that bad and there are also newer variants (Type 093G) that have been considerably improved.
Lastly, new models are coming online. Taking into account the pace of improvement when it comes to the Chinese technology in general, the new Type 095 could, and most probably will already be really good.
Anatoly, never mind this post–it is erroneous and with no malice intended, anyway. My bad.
That’s pretty cool – real-time source confirmation. Solid.
Peace.
Hey Greasy,
Maybe he makes an exception for American hotties like you do for Persian hotties.
Though some think otherwise…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YVFuTIGUhTk
Peace.
Are you referring to something like this?
https://io9.gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135
It’s a very fun theory and Jayne’s book was a great read, but no physical evidence for it has been found. Moreover primitive people that have been encountered don’t demonstrate constant auditory hallucinations guiding their actions.
I was going to chime in support of Art Deco’s observation, but you got your confirmation already.
The state of “Sinology” in the U.S. isn’t all that great either. To begin with, most “public intellectuals” who deign to comment on East Asia in general do not speak any East Asian language (despite the valiant efforts of the likes of Monterey and Middlebury). The number of actual experts with in-depth knowledge of East Asia who can operate in the languages of the region is vanishingly small in the U.S. too. This is not a surprise given that French and Spanish have been the two most dominant foreign language studies in the U.S. for decades.
What we do have more of than Russia, I would guess, is a substantially greater number of people who have what I call the “cocktail party banter” knowledge of East Asia – e.g. businessmen, students, and post-college English-teachers (i.e. those without actual value-added work skills)*, and so on, who have some surface knowledge of the region and may have command of modest levels of local linguistic ability, just enough to impress those who are unstudied of the region (that’s a kind way of saying “ignorant”).
*There are American expat businessmen and English teachers in East Asia who never attain anything close to fluency in the local languages even after several years of stay – they just operate among other expats and never go local. You would think that the military and the Foreign Service would (and should) possess numerous Asian linguists and experts given our vast and lengthy imperial presence, but, alas, Asian assignments are not high prestige and the frequent rotation schedule doesn’t allow for deep on-the-job expertise-building in any case.
With minimal training? No. From what I gather, Putin is a legit Judo black belt from a country that is a Judo powerhouse. My money would be on him tossing and strangling every world leader in one-on-one matches, EXCEPT ONE – Khaltmaagiin Battugla, the president of Mongolia. That guy grew up doing Mongolian folk wrestling, was on the Mongolian national (Western) wrestling team and won a world cup, and is currently the chairman of Mongolian Judo federations simultaneously. And he looks like this:
https://nextshark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Judoka-Battulga-Mongolia.jpg
I have a feeling that guy might hulk-smash Putin in Judo or any other type of grappling match. At my Judo club, there is now a Mongolian guy (was on the Mongolian national team a few years ago), and he is a beast. He is physically small, but is super studly in Judo. As expected of a Mongolian, he does lots of pick-up throws (Yagura-Nage, aka Zantaraia Uchi-Mata, Kharbareli, Ura-Nage, etc.)*.
*These are techniques, in which Russian and Georgian Judoka also excel (Zantaraia and Kharbareli being Georgian names).
You can say that again.
About his claim below:
It leads one to suspect that HE specializes in “systems integration” and “operational research.” What are the odds that such a person would find people who lack these skills completely unqualified to discuss military matters! I bet, though, that he doesn’t have an actual experience of being shot at with small arms by angry opponents or putting rounds into people at close quarters.
There are certainly aspects of warfare that lend themselves well to this kind of framework – e.g. treating war as an exchange of firepower (delivering x amount of ordinance on y location in z time period, to simplify greatly). One can easily envision scenarios such as this in, say, combat between naval and air elements over the empty oceans.
However, there are many other aspects of warfare that are not so “scientifically materialist” and require understanding of the “art” (or the human) aspect of war, from personnel issues such as morale, motivation, and cohesion, to studying the local human terrain/networks in an insurgency/counter-insurgency. The fact is, the U.S. military today doesn’t simply deliver ordnance/payloads on targets. It provides humanitarian relief, props up proxy/allied governments, runs intelligence operations, and fights gangsters, criminals, bandits, drug dealers, and religious fanatics, all on top of maintaining forces that are capable doing “big stuff.”
War is not simply combat between two developed states. It is ALL human activity in which there is organized violence across borders (and sometimes within, i.e. civil wars) toward political ends. And the U.S. military, being an expeditionary force maintaining a vast imperium, struggles mightily to create and sustain a “full spectrum” capability force able to do virtually everything that relates to this violence, from nuclear weapons to aircraft carriers in the oceans to tank platoons in deserts to small teams operating in the jungles in pursuit of insurgent/Jihadi groups to operating disaster relief supply ships.
It would be very helpful, indeed, to have knowledge of systems integration and operations research in examining some aspects of warfare. But the idea that ONLY people with such expertise can understand and analyze war is silly – it reminds me of those “high priests” of von Clausewitz who claim that only those who can read him in the original German can really understand his concepts (and therefore truly understand war). This kind of guild-ism is the domain of those who simply lack the ability to convince others of their awesome – self-perceived – genius.
In all fairness, I wouldn’t say China is yet at Russia’s level, though I’d estimate the lag at a much more modest 0.5 generations (on average) that I expect China to fully close within another decade.
This is reflected in China’s big continued lag in military exports, despite lower production costs, and very active efforts to push into Russia’s markets.
My amateur assessment: It genuinely is behind on both diesel (Yuan uses German engines) and nuclear subs (much noisier than Russian and US counterparts) by about a generation. Also behind by around a generation on air defense. Can’t judge China’s EW capabilities, though Russia’s are very good. Far behind in all the constituent elements of the nuclear triad. Finally, its strategic airlift capabilies are minimal relative to America’s and modest relative to Russia’s – though the Y-20 program is absolutely gargantuan in scope and should close the gap very fast. Comparable: Russia’s lead in both armored forces and fighters is half a generation at best (Armata is the world’s most advanced tank, but hardly relevant at present). The Chinese surface navy (esp. destroyers) is comparable or better, and newer than what Russia has. Better drones.
I thought Mr Karlin had some alternate explanation of that:
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/top-50-russophobe-myths/
Still much better than what the Indians have achieved in the last decades.
Russian blindness in relation to China (and other Eastern countries) it’s a strange phenomenon that manifests itself in different areas. The history textbook in Russian schools is a textbook about the history of Europe:
Greece, Rome, European middle ages, Renaissance, reformation, etc.
The History of China for an educated resident of Russia is a white spot. The only Chinese historical figure that Russians know is Qin Shi Huang (about him – the famous children’s book).
Similar examples abound, sometimes they are anecdotal. For instance the last 20 years ithe bookstores are filled with books of fantasy genre, with 98% of these books have a “European” background.
My problem with the Armata and the PAK FA is that they’re still somewhere in the prototype phase. By the time they’ll enter service, Russia’s potential enemies might already have some better toys. (Though looking at the Americans with their impossible to kill F-35 program… and how all American allies are now buying it… maybe the better toys will only apply to the Chinese.)
Russian weapon systems often get this type of hype from people who instinctively hate the globalist empire centered in the US. I noticed it in Hungary already in the late 90s with anti-globalist right wing types that they started hyping the then totally nonexistent (not even prototypes, not even proper plans) Russian weapons. This despite those right wing types being the most anti-Russian in the early 90s (and of course before).
Now I started disliking the globalist empire around the time of the Iraq war (2003), and for a while I started hyping those weapons, but I’m now older, wiser, and I now take the tales of Russian Wunderwaffen with a grain of salt. I have talked to a couple older Hungarian officers, and I’m sure a lot of Russian weapons are good (they seemed to prefer Russian weapons for the Hungarian armed forces, because they thought most western weapons would be difficult to maintain in a real war – though they thought western weapons were better under ideal conditions, and even in places like Afghanistan where repair or supply of spare parts etc. were not a problem), but I doubt they are Wunderwaffen.
Ex-officers both.
I don’t think it’s that strange. People will always feel more sympathy towards those who are racially similar to themselves. Just economic incentives are not enough. For example, when America was booming during the nineteenth century, Europe looked down upon America as culturally inferior, even though America and Europe are the same people.
Actually the Indians do have an indigenous fighter called the Tejas which is supposed to be a 4.5 generation aircraft.
https://bharatkarnad.com/2016/01/23/urgent-see-tejas-perform-live-lca-impact/
http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/mapping-russias-most-drunk-and-sober-regions?utm
Yes, of course. Craziest example that I know of, though only second-hand: Ethnic Russian who came to the US as a child, now makes good money in tech. Married an SJW chick, who talked him into adopting a couple of African children (they still have none of their own). I suppose this is as successful an example of assimilation into modern American society as any. I would assume that even Thorfinnsson would have preferred he become a Russian nationalist instead.
Ancient Egypt was an autocracy, most of the time. But the Pharaoh had to maintain good relations with the Priesthood, Aristocracy and other powerful groups. And that’s what generally they did. Also, being a God-King involved a great deal of noblesse oblige.
To say it was ” very nasty esp on the personal liberty front” is absurd. Ancient Egyptian notions of personal liberty were very different from ours, and largely derived from their religion, whose representative on earth the Pharoah was.
To say North Korea is benign by comparison is risible. It’s like saying that North Korea is benign compared to C19th Tsarist Autocracy. It’s not.
The Ancient Egyptians – at least until the end of the New Kingdom – had no idea of material progress. They built pyramids. Most of the work was done by army conscripts. We know from archaeological evidence that these were fit, well-fed young men.
North Korea is an Orwellian nightmare. It wants to build nuclear missiles, regardless of the consequences. Its policies have starved many North Koreans to death. Its border guards are not fit, well-fed young men, they’re people whose innards are being eaten by worms and other parasites. Unsurprisingly, they try to escape, even in desperate circumstances.
well i am no military man but I am pretty sure the things you listed such as
…can totally be quantified and analyzed in a purely materialist framework. (re morale, motivation etc, see the zumwalt jab above). In fact, there are economists who still think ALL human activity can be put in such a framework. I long held the standard Misesian view that you can’t, but in the last years I realized, that maybe he missed the rise of the machines and superintelligence. With all the AI jazz, I am not so certain anymore that virtually anything human can be coded down.
Well…i guess I have to reread Mises in german 😀 But seriously, the argument that you can gain new insight with a different language is not so far fetched as you present. (Those damn machines coding in their own language come to mind again) A couple of years ago, I might have agreed with you completely, but times change.
I don’t think the racial factor is important in Russia (this factor never played a role in Russia’s history). Rather strange “Eurocentrism” is caused by peculiarities of culture. The same reason probably was the cause of thousands of years of antipathy to Byzantium (the factor of “race” in this case excluded – ancient Greece is perceived in Russia super positive)
I’d like to note that, to reinforce an earlier point I made, no one here is discussing the human quality differential, if any, between Russian and Chinese military personnel, in any dimension. Most seem – like a bunch of video game-playing school boys with zero experience in actually killing people who shoot back – obsessed with slightly more complicated versions of whose tank has a bigger gun (or whose aircraft has a better engine) debate.
I’m guessing no one here has studied John Boyd, the fighter pilot who pioneered the modern air-to-air combat studies in the U.S. and later became a prophetic military theorist of the OODA loop fame, whose axiom was simply, “people first, ideas second, hardware third” (and who was frustrated that the Pentagon in all its bureaucratic glory reversed the priorities).
If economists of any stripe could perfectly model and predict human behavior, you wouldn’t be able to find arbitrage opportunities in anything.
The problem with modeling human behavior is that it is quite predictable… until it isn’t. Knowing the difference is where the art is.
That’s a straw man both ways.
I’m multilingual. I do think that knowing multiple languages, especially across higher level language group boundaries, is helpful. But, I would never argue that people who lack such linguistic skills should shut-up and and go away, and that only people with MY particular skill sets should speak.
Oh yeah, sorry about that. Writing from memory. The names of the brothers always cracked me up.
You are probably correct.
I merely pointed out that no individual Russian (Chinese, etc.) weapon in and of itself will much change the balance of power, and is unlikely to be so much better than its (Chinese, American, etc.) counterparts (if at all) to make a big difference.
And even if we restrict ourselves to hardware, it’s easy to point out how individual weapons are parts of bigger systems. So even if – for example – a fighter jet is better than its counterpart (please remember that it’s a simplification, because those jets could be employed in many roles, and the picture may not be so simple, like better in one role but worse in another), taken together with air defense (itself with many components), AEW/AWACS, ground based radar systems, etc. the picture could be significantly different.
Or it might depend on the exact scenario, or how they are used. Which leads to your point – the human factor, and the role of ideas. I’m sure inferior systems also have strengths and superior ones weaknesses, and that it’s possible to use inferior systems in ways which make them more effective against superior systems of dumber enemies…
I know, my sincere apologies.
Agree. China definitely makes strides and is learning–no one denies that. But China’s military is not a competition to Russia’s or America’s, despite both having their own issues. China has some acceptable showing in some very few fields, but most of it when it comes to military is a bluster and unsupported claims.
Come on, you know that’s a parody of Back in the USA. Wasn’t it bad enough that the Soviets had a couple of Jews steal our atomic secrets, they had to have a few Brits steal funny rock songs too?
I didn’t mean the linguistic part as a charge. It will depend on the subject at hand, but in certain areas, such as economics, the language, german/french in particular, have their specific insights into an argument, which may help understand the issue better, so if you know the language, it puts you in an advantage. But I agree that the psychology of war probably is not one of those subjects.
Otherwise, I agree that the silencing tactics of credentialism of AM may appear arrogant. On the other hand, I think it is justified as a tool in a discussion format. One tries to be brief, subjects often repeat themselves and one needs a shortcut to navigate. The credentials game may be a fallacy but not necessarily if everyone ‘knows what you mean’.
I agree with the state of economics as you describe it, except
I would claim the contrary. The age of laissez-fair is over. The latest Nobel holder Thaler has some beautiful models on how to take advantage of predictable human activity. Keynesians thrive through the ages.
Per arbitrage, I agree. And in deed it looks like arbitrage is becoming a thing of the past. It has a lot to do with the fact that machines do almost all of the trading these days.(EMH maybe?)
Like you I’m not a big fan of Chinese military tech, but I’m not sure where you are getting this. Have you personally inspected the J-20s?
Every Western analysis I have read has said that the J-20 is legitimately a gen 5 aircraft that has a low RCS from the front. It appears that the Chinese didn’t even try to engineer all aspect stealth.
I have also read something by a PLAAF fanboy who made the case that the J-20 is true air superiority fighter, as opposed to being an interceptor as it is so described in Western analysis, and I have to say he made a pretty good case.
Actually, Ukraine’s Poroshenko could probably best Putin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Poroshenko
“In his youth, Poroshenko practiced judo and sambo, and was Candidate for Master of Sport of the USSR.[19] Despite good grades he was not awarded the normal gold medal at graduation, and on his report card he was given a “C” for his behavior.[20] After getting into a fight with four Soviet Army cadets at the military commissariat, he was sent to army service in the distant Kazakh SSR.”
He is a lot bigger than Putin, but may be out of shape:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/w1-rusukr-a-20140608-870×601.jpg
Yeah, I can agree with that, for the most part anyway. China will fully close the gap by 2025, IMO.
When it comes to military exports, Russia and the US/west have… I don’t know how to describe it… inertia, traditions, very long-term business relations with many countries. It’s obviously going to take some time for China to catch up with them fully in that regard. But they are already the 3rd largest exporter regardless.
Does Yuan really still use German engines? The newest variants? Maybe, but that sounds odd to me… Or are they using German copies? Also, IIRC, Yuan subs have AIP, which none of the Russia diesel subs have atm, so there’s that. So I still think they are pretty much equal in diesel subs, but indeed a generation behind in nuke subs. But only a generation.
As I said, the new variants of the Type 093-class should actually be pretty good, and atleast comparable to the oldest Russian and American subs currently in service. Type 095 isn’t probably far off at all at this point, and it should logically be pretty competitive even with the newest foreign designs.
I do also accept that S-400, and the newest BUKs, etc. are better than anything in China (or probably anywhere else for that matter). But HQ-9 is still a capable system, and originally Turkey chose that over both the Patriot and the upgraded variant of S-300, IIRC. Chinese IADS is by far the second best in the world.
Also, Chinese fighter fleet is like 2-2.5 times larger than the Russian, so there’s that as well… I think they also already have a slightly larger number of 4th and 5th generation fighters in service, by 2025 China will have twice as many.
Yes, Y-20 will close the gap soon, again by 2025, IMO. Armata family is certainly the most advanced in the world, but even there the gap is probably half a generation. China also has new armoured vehicles and Type-99 tanks in respectable numbers (I think they have close 1000 Type-99s in service), which are very good, again especially the newer variants, and probably overall better than any Russian tank, except T-14s and maybe T-90s (less than 500 in service combined), so…
Russian surface ship designs are probably very competitive, the major problem is that Russian shipbuilding industry is unable to build them in numbers atm. Also, currently the largest class in construction is the Gorshkov, which is modest in size… The difference to Chinese shipbuilding capability is really quite massive. China is indeed ahead in drones, and that’s actually a field where Russia will catch up by the early 2020s. But even the China will have the advantage in numbers.
Martyanov is very biased. China can not into tech. We’re living in 1997.
Being graduate of Tashkent university, oriental faculty, Chinese department of 1991 I tend to agree with Andrei. The study alone did not prepare graduates to be anything but interpreters/ translators and teaches. It did give excellent linguistic, historical, cultural and to small extent economic foundation but to do what that guy mentioned by Anatolii is doing one has to have had additional background. Mixed together they would make a good match. There were other option namely so called department or institute of foreign languages interpreters translators attached to MINISTRY of defence where preparation was a lot more thorough. One had to finish his service within Soviet army to apply and already have linguistic background. MGIMO COMES TO mind. But regular graduates of oriental faculties plainly were not qualified to make politico military analysis. I am not aware about level of sinology Now, but in Soviet times it was very high. I studied with American, German and French students while in China and they were not even in our advanced group where only we and Japanese were.
VIIYa (Military Institute of Foreign Languages) was a powerhouse in terms of Oriental languages. Knew personally several graduates, including those with specialization in Afghanistan–excellent specialists.
http://www.clubvi.ru/
Here is department of Far Eastern languages (and studies).
http://www.clubvi.ru/kafedry/dv/
There is much more to it than just noise levels, however important.
Sir, before stating anything, at least have decency to at least browse Wiki (bottom line) not to mention getting subscription to some professional publications.
Here is the list of aircraft in Russian Air Force inventory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Russian_military_aircraft
and Here is PLAAF:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Air_Force
Just to give you some reference point: Russian AF’s number of Mig-31s alone is 247, with 60 of them already upgraded to BM versions. China has nothing like SU-34 which is already above 100, even combat trainer brand new Yak-130 is already near 100. I am not talking about around 600 legacy of MiG-29 and SU-27, many being upgraded to SMT and SM versions. So do the basic math. And yes, 388 Chinese Mig 21 knock offs are hardly a serious aircraft anymore. Even if to consider Russian AF inventory at 70% it is still much larger than that of PLAAF. It is also much more combat capable.
I’d contribute to a road trip for our kind host to visit them and document his thoughts.
It’s certainly not specific to Russians, but it’s more notable since there are a number of recent Russian immigrants. There are by comparison very few contemporary Western European immigrants.
There are other recent Eastern European immigrants, but other than some Ukrainians they never seem to be noteworthy at all as patriots of their homelands.
The essential foreignness of Slavic names compared to Germanic (let alone British Isles) names also makes them stand out more.
Russians being [b]white[/b] makes it offensive when they don’t assimilate, whereas not much can be expected from non-white immigrants in this department.
The liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger made this point in his 1991 book The Disuniting of America. He described the barrier of the 19th century Atlantic Ocean as a “psychological guillotine” which decisively cut off immigrants from their homeland.
The point is true (especially today–communications technology has improved radically since 1991), though somewhat overplayed since diaspora groups often formed ethnic enclaves. Schlesinger was part of the postwar generation which launched the whole immigration schmaltz project as a way of (re)creating national unity in the mid-20th century and thus overly romanticized America’s first mass immigration period.
Too bad this policy isn’t applied against the far more dangerous Chinese. It should be prohibited by federal law for ethnic Chinese to work for defense contractors, national laboratories, and certain civilian high technology sectors. Better yet ethnic Chinese can simply go home. Their motherland would certainly welcome the return of these “sea turtles”.
You are indeed correct.
I love my country, but preservation of the race which created my country takes priority.
Wikipedia figures for both are a little outdated. I think we should also include the Navy (for both).
I didn’t really count legacy fighters. 1. I said the number of “modern” fighters are currently quite similar and 2. that by 2020-25 China will overtake Russia. It’s true that Mig-21 is not modern anymore, but it will be replaced by 2025, maybe not on a 1:1 basis, but still.
So Russian air force will look roughly like this in 2020, no?
12 Su-57
100 Su-35
150 Su-30SM
100 MiG-29/35 (SMT, 29K, 35)
150 upgraded Su-27
130 Mig-31BM (btw, I think there are already almost 100 of them, not mere 60)
150 Su-34
= 800 “fighters”
China 2020:
50-100 J-20
500 J-10 (A/B/C)
90 Su-30
60 J-15
250 J-11
100 J-16
24 Su-35
= 1100 “fighters”
That Chinese figure of 1100 will grow to 1400-1500 by the end of 2025, while the Russian fleet will grow barely at all, they need to start replacing the Su-27s and Mig-29SMTs after 2020. Also, those Chinese frames on average are newer.
Hundreds of Mig-29s and Su-27s are paper figures at this point. Are they seriously operational? For the most part no, and certainly for long, most of them won’t be upgraded either. 300 older Su-27 and Mig-29 (in total) combined in 2020 is a realistic number, IMO. Russia doesn’t have the need or the resources to keep many more than that operational anyway. 800-900 is a very good number though.
Russia gets much more bang for the buck (btw, so does China) than the Western militaries, but there’s a limit. Also there are manpower limits. China’s population is almost 10 times bigger, ffs. Russian Air Force isn’t “much more” capable in 2017, that’s isn’t based on anything and it’s also economically impossible.
I’m mostly talking about fighters, Russians do have more attack helicopters, more helicopters in general – if you count them as part of the air force – more transport aircraft and maybe more AWACS capability, although that seems to be somewhat debatable as well, considering China has many smaller ones, but the point is that all of that is RAPIDLY changing.
Tejas is an embarrassment: https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/tejas-cant-meet-requirements-endurance-of-one-hour-low-payload-expensive-trumped-by-f-16-gripen.586201/
First, America should stop prolonging the disunity of their motherland by supporting the separatists on Taiwan.
Nothing stopping the Taiwan Chinese from emigrating to China if they want to so badly.
While you’re probably eager to go into poverty in order to preserve abstract concepts, its fortunate that the actual decisionmakers have saner ideas about people and the ability to vet individuals on a more specific level.
Which, incidentally, might be why they are the decisionmakers and you aren’t.
Taiwan is Chinese.
No, you are mostly talking about wet dreams.
And this relates to area (and air border length) to be protected or to conduct operations exactly how? Yeah, if you didn’t know–Chinese air space, not to mention border with friendly Russia is how exactly smaller than that of Russia? Will you do the math or you want me do it?
Soviet/Russian Air Force has a combat record of which China can only dream about. In related latest news–operational tempo of Russian AF in Syria literally shocked all militaries in the world. Russian history of using (and developing) precision guided munitions goes back as far as 1960s. Combat operations is the only thing that matters. What exactly is Chinese record here?
LOL. What about MiG-31Bs? Throw them away? Per SU-57, 12? There are 9 flyable prototypes alone as of now. Per SU-27, you haven’t been keeping up with news. Here are some old news from 2013 by which time half (50%) of SU-27 inventory has been upgraded.
http://www.armstrade.org/includes/periodics/news/2012/0313/100511974/detail.shtml
So, where does this leaves us with “150 SU-27”? There is also issue with MiG-29/35 since here I have to go with Bondarev. Granted the large number of upgraded MiG-29s still flying and doing their thing.
https://tvzvezda.ru/news/opk/content/201701271350-tanf.htm
Well, it is obviously much more than that, but whatever the arithmetic of this issue is, it is still nowhere near the ratio which, and I quote you, you arrived to:
You see, this is just pure arithmetic, algebra and calculus–such as calculations of actual combat capability and required force–come later. So, are we in agreement that this number “2-2.5 times” is a wet dream? I also want you to understand, with all my due respect to Chinese people and their country, for all this talk–China is NOT a competitor to Russia and, at least for now, US in combat capability across a whole spectrum of platforms and technologies. China is simply not there yet. Will it get there? Surely not impossible, but judging by the record–Chinese entrance into the jet era happened in 1950s largely due to aid from Soviet Union. Since then, Soviet Union created a huge variety of combat and civilian aircraft, some of them world class. The the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia lost 15 years to mindless destructive “reforms”, while China was developing explosively and yet… I hear about Chinese great this and that since 1990s–where is it? Show me decent, forget world-class Chinese jet-engine, even if knock-off. Where is it? Even J-20 flies on Russian engine. FYI, do you know when Soviet (Soviet!!!) Air Force had super-cruise capability? In 1980s with MiG-31. Do you know that by now MC-21 flew for days–20 flights before being flown to Moscow and now flying all regimes. Check how much time COMAC 919 spends in the air, despite being unveiled earlier? All aluminum body aircraft? Really, in 2017? Don’t think that people can not count and compare. China still has a very long way to go in its military capability, let alone getting to indigenous weapon system which is fully competitive or surpasses competition in its combat capability. Most likely the breakthrough will happen in surface combatants in the future (I mean quality, not quantity–Chinese shipbuilding capacity is, indeed, massive), not in aerospace nor in ground forces. For now, it is mostly bluster and unfounded claims.
Tell us why you think that the J20 isn’t a 5th Gen fighter or be condemned to Hell.
Formosa is Portuguese. Or Japanese. Or Taiwanese. Whatever.
Taiwan is Chinese. Whatever sympathies I had for them otherwise has ended since they’ve gone full pozzed.
Why should WE do this?
To put it in blunt terms–what’s in it for US?
I would be more than happy to “sell” Taiwan to the PRC, but in the immortal words of former Illinois Governor and current incarcerated felon Rod Blagojevich,
Han Chinese seem to be sort of a meta ethnicity similar to Pakistanis or Iranians as opposed to a bloc ethnicity like Japanese, Koreans or Vietnamese.
The security of our technological secrets is not really an abstract, conceptual issue.
There’s a very strong record of ethnic Chinese scientists providing secrets to the PRC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_the_United_States
Yes, our “sane” decisionmakers are doing a wonderful job of vetting these individuals.
I am not aware of a single comparable (i.e. involving technological secrets) case involving Russian nationals, and while Soviet penetration was highly effective during the war and immediately thereafter it rapidly ceased to be so.
“meta ethnicity” and “bloc ethnicity”? What’s that?
b/c RUSSIA STRONK!
https://i.imgur.com/3RIbq38.png
Most of Martyanov’s posts amount to an elaborate rationalization of why Russia is mightier than its adversaries.
He’s a higher grade version of The Faker.
Well I mean like, an ethnicity that has other ethnicities inside of it. The best two examples would be Indians and Jews. Jews have Ashkenazic, Sephardic, Mizrahi, Persian, Yemenite and a bunch of weird central Asian ethnicities. Indians are similar and so are Pakistanis, Iranians and even Han Chinese to a lesser extent. Germans too for that matter, although maybe not so much today but certainly as recently as WWI.
But there are no sub ethnicities in Japan, Vietnam, England, France or whatever. They are blanket whereas the nations mentioned above are more like a quilt.
Conquer land, not a people.
Russians conquered empty Siberia and kept it.
Manchurians conquered populated China and got swallowed by it.
It seems the UK is now being swallowed up the very people it had once conquered: Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Muslims, and even Chinese.
How dumb.
I don’t know, are you sure about that? There’s at least somewhat of a regional divide between north and south in England I’d say (though England is probably one of the oldest nations in existence…unfortunately probably not for much longer), and I don’t think regional identities have been entirely erased in France either, despite the tradition of centralism.
Probably depends what you regard as “ethnicity”…”Indian” seems pretty meaningless as ethnic identity imo, the linguistic, cultural, religious, even genetic differences between different subgroups there are vast. Han Chinese are probably more cohesive (but then I’ve never been either to India or China and don’t intend to go there, so I’m not speaking from personal experience).
The Chinese define themselves as Han around 90% or so, though genetically its quite varied and has at least two large separate clusters with different ancestries(http://www.pnas.org/content/95/20/11763). Perception is reality and all that.
Oh yes, like Qian Xuesen’s logbooks which were “code language” and Walter Liew’s use of basically publically available information which is then cooked into a convenient witch-hunt, the kind which you would love to participate in. People like you are the reason why China successfully developed the nuclear weapons system so quickly, because you’re extremely effective at creating your own enemies: the brilliance of deporting a KMT sympathizer to the commies because they all are the same to you, and then destroying the nuclear program of your supposed “allies.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qian_Xuesen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
Meanwhile, perhaps you should look into your own navy for the largest and most effective examples of corruption and failure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal
My time for trolls is limited. You’re gone.
Read this, may help–J-20 doesn’t have a modern engine with super-cruise, despite all those “any minute now” promises on WS-15.
https://www.rt.com/news/203879-china-fighter-russian-engines/
Guess why China was so eager to buy SU-35s. I will abstain for now from discussion of avionics since there are NO verifiable data on it, unlike it is, say with SU-35C —> SU-57 avionics suite which is now operating in new environment which substituted Russian previous generation combat computer Baget, it also is based on Russian designed and produced multi-core processors and new combat OS. It is widely shown and discussed in open media. I’ve seen nothing of like, including a complete silence on combat performance of J-20–everything is classified and I know reason why. Anyway–until there is a full blown Chinese-designed and made fifth generation engine–there is nothing to discuss. In the end compare a very unimpressive performance by J-20 (supposedly serial production now) and with something which has Russian made engines, real 5G.
J-20
https://youtu.be/k_CK3N8mOXs
Su-57.
https://youtu.be/EVlTjSlo4fM
So the F-35 isn’t 5th Gen then? It can’t supercruise either.
In my opinion, if you stick a shitty engine in a 5th generation air frame, it doesn’t change the fact that the air frame itself is still 5th generation.
I have read many sources questioning just how capable the J20 is or isn’t, but you are the first person I have ever seen who said that it is a 4th gen air frame that is just designed to look like a 5th generation one. I don’t believe that is the case.
Now if you want to say that a true 5th gen air frame needs to be low RCS from all angles, that I could sorta agree with. But even in that case it would make the J20 a 4.5+ gen fighter as opposed to just another 4th gen model.
I can tell you more–F35 isn’t even a good plane to start with, 5G regardless. As much as I respect American aviation which over decades produced some outstanding designs from P-51 Mustang to F-22, which at the moment of its appearance early 2000s was arguably the best fighter in the world, F-35 is an embarrassment. Per this proverbial Stealth–old song, old criterion–modern radar such as Irbis sees it just fine, every modern AD system from S-300 to S-400–no problem. So, this whole obsession with “invisibility” in radio-diapason played a really nasty trick with USAF which lost a balance in its aircraft design. Per civilian–still outstanding aerospace industry with some outstanding commercial designs in the skies.
I know opinions of Russian professionals (some of them private)–not impressed at all with J-20. In fact, many doubt, because of the design, that it is a fighter at all. Per “questioning”, until it demonstrates, in classic manner of “either put-up or shut up”, the questioning is not only irresistible but highly warranted. But then again, Chinese classified everything and it is not because of this plane being that good. So, per me personally? I already stated above a number of very substantial reasons for doubting performance of any Chinese hardware, especially aircraft, since there is absolutely NO record of ANY Chinese competitive weapon system. None, zero. Could I be wrong? Possible, and often I am wrong, but in this particular case I think a have a shot at being right.
Your general disposition is a walking argument against permitting any form of Chinese immigration.
God forbid anyone not take the side of the Chinese in any particular matter.
You guys are almost as pathologically self-absorbed as the yids.
“No, you are mostly talking about wet dreams.”
… OK?
Ah, the “Chinese don’t have experience” argument… Never gts old, now does it? Other militaries don’t have that much experience of recent peer-to-peer combat of any kind either. Russian operation is Syria is great, but how much does that tell you really? Haven’t engaged in air-to-air combat, fighting an enemy with very weak/non-existent air defences.
You think China wouldn’t be able to pull off the same? That is, in a country that is roughly as far away from China as Syria is from Russia. (Let me guess: nope. China can’t into military. LOL.) (Seriously though, the lack of tranport aircraft could be an issue right now, but much less so even 5 years from now. And they have considerably better naval power projection capabilities than Russia.)
Those articles are seemingly nonsense. It is basically certain at this point that Russia will have around 100 “MiG-29s” in 2020. You didn’t know that!? 24 Mig-29Ks, around 30 MiG-35s and 50ish MiG-29SMTs. That’s it. Mig-29s were in particularly bad condition after the 90s. That’s not a huge problem though, because they have enough Flankers.
I don’t even know what the “50% upgraded” figure is supposed to mean in regards to Flankers. What kind of numbers are we talking about? There are certainly not more than 150-200 upgraded Su-27s, SM standard and up. If anything I might have exaggerated a little and the real number is closer to 100.
Protypes don’t usually count, do they? (Or maybe if you stretch it, you could count the last few, idk.) There will be 12 production Su-57s by the end 2020, it seems to be pretty much confirmed at this point. You didn’t know that either!? But I guess that doesn’t fit your narrative? I’m sure there should be 300 Su-57s and 10,000 T-14s very soon. Because Russia simply can, because we are living 1985. (Chinese can’t, because we are living in 1985.)
Again, how much of that is only on paper? How many of those additional Mig-31s are actually in ACTIVE service? More than 130-150 won’t be upgraded and won’t be kept in service past past 2020 AFAIK, that’s all I care about. Or you can add 100 old Mig-31s to that 800, if that makes you feel better, whatever.
Well, does “almost 2x larger” sound better? Happy now? 1500-1600 (I could actually be understimating) vs. 800-900? And the overall will probably grow to 2000 by 2030s, because I think that is the actual size of the fighter fleet, which will probably also grow when China gets additional carriers… So the final comparison in the early 2030s could be China 2000 vs. Russia 800-900.
You for one don’t seem to understand basic economic realities… China doesn’t have a “very long” way to go. J-20, J-10C, Y-20, Type 052D, Type 055, Type 041, Type 99… I don’t think you have to wait for the WS-15 engine for that long either. 2020 maybe? Some estimates put it as early as 2019. Not to mention that the most recent variants of WS-10 are actually pretty decent as well, equipping HUNDREDS of Chinese Flankers. Type 095 as well probably before 2020, H-20 stealth bomber by 2025… But whatever, it doesn’t matter what I say, nothing will ever convince you, so I think I’m done with the topic.
You went further than just questioning Chinese American loyalty, you singled out Chinese Americans as being a security threat who should be discriminated against. I can’t really blame him for being affronted.
There are plenty of assimilated, 2nd and 3rd gen Chinese Americans who are loyal Americans. In fact they are usually politically left of center and disinterested in Chinese nationalism. It’s the one’s with the accents who you have to look out for.
What, my general disposition to call your ilk on your bullshit, ignorance and lack of awareness of history as well as your hypocrisy? How very typical.
As I said before, there’s a reason why you’re not among the decisionmakers. I sincerely hope that you continue to enjoy posing as a victim of everyone and everything.
I beg to differ. I see no real indicators of China overcoming an inherent problem with jet engines any time soon. If China is so good and has not a “very long” way to go, why, the hell, she was in constant negotiations and finally got her hands on SU-35? It is a COMMON knowledge in Russian professional circles that SU-35 were sold to be harvested for primarily engine and radar technology. CR-929 will be powered by PD-35 also. Is China trying? Sure as hell she is but I will divulge you a little “secret” modern engines, apart from design, are totally dependent on world-class metallurgy and composites (carbon fiber is used in blades for example). I don’t have time to explain to you what a huge, gigantic issue metallurgy is. China IS NOT known for her metallurgy (well, she is but not in a positive sense).
It never gets old because it is legitimate and powerful argument. This is not to speak of massive arrays of information which are collected in combat. Guess why US military is getting to Ukraine as if there is no tomorrow. You think to train Kiev troops? No, to collect this info, those precious and hardly obtained war correlates which color later weapon systems R&D and tactics and operational art.
But I do, since I was born into the family of an engineer who most of his professional life was working in Soviet Military-Industrial Complex. Before I graduated naval academy, in my school years, I was often on the manufacturing floor of some rather interesting shops. It is also a reason that I don’t buy those arguments about “arms race” bankrupting Soviet Union, among many others.
Nope. Not only I think so–I know so, even despite China’s impressive strategic lift capability. Per marked in bold. If you mean amphibious operations? Sure–agree here. But Russia’s power projection needs are really limited and I am a vocal opponent of Russia getting into this funny business on a major scale for years now. But here we get into the doctrinal issues, and you may (hopefully tomorrow) read my piece precisely on that. Per the (tiresome) rest–read Russia’s Military Doctrine, it is quite explicit in describing how Russia views herself. China wants to make a bid for global leadership (in some fields), be my guests–Russia will support China where necessary but for that bid to be really global China will need some really serious improvements in her submarine nuclear component, which will require a lot of effort. United States may be a declining power (it is) but for all her major faults PLAN is not a competition to US Navy beyond First Island Chain. Different leagues
Well your reference to your navy among other things stands out. If the PLAN is your navy nobody rational would think you are loyal to the US*.
That said, Thorfinnsson is probably trolling you.
*OTOH if you’re not an American citizen it makes sense of course, so never mind in that case.
I was referring specifically to the “White Navy” that he was praising earlier. The culprits of the Fat Leonard scandal were also white. Given his constant references to the rather limited number of Chinese spy cases(several which were overturned) given the number of Chinese-Americans, it seemed well deserved on his part.
I certainly don’t think of the PLAN as my navy. I mean, by the most basic of definitions, if you identify with something, it should presumably include you in its protection or the like. But frankly, it seems fair to assume that there’s no one who’s got your back these days.
Atomization is glorious.
I look forward to both your articles and comments, and Anatoly’s.
Sad and sickening. I’m embarrassed that you can accurately say that this epitomizes the self-hating, unmanly, misplaced-loyalty, Cowardly type of lifestyle that is pushed on men in America today. They’re encouraged and propagandized to become a genetic dead end, perpetuating someone else’s genes and culture at the expense of their own. They’re taught to have no loyalty to their own people greater than to indifferent, hostile, or largely incompatible peoples. They are taught not to care about perpetuating their own family and their own extended family, the nation (not the government or “society” or whoever lives on our territory, but their NATION).
Thankfully, it seems that Russians overall DO treat race as vital to a degree, e.g. they would never accept Africans as Russians or condone such people marrying their children or settling in meaningful numbers in their country.
My sentiment as well.
Conquer land and don’t leave any of the prior people alive, would seem to be sound advice, sadly.
the Russians, for all their history had no contact (massively) with Africans. But Russians had contact with the “Аsians” since the early middle ages, and the racial factor did not play any role in this. Examples today – Sobyanin and Shoigu. Or here’s another example:
“In the kind of national division that has developed in Central Asia in the late Soviet times, the Koreans, of course, belonged to the “Russian” or “European,” like all westernized non-Muslim ethnic groups (and, by the way, the Muslim Tatars).”
http://old.russ.ru/politics/20020109-lan.html
To put simply, the quality of the human material on each side (at all levels – from grand-strategic to operational to tactical) and their associated dimensions (leadership/training/competence/cohesion/courage, etc.) and the soundness of ideas (i.e. doctrine/planning) matter far more in warfighting than who has a better engine.
The Chinese speak mutually unintelligible “dialects” (i.e. languages), for example I once had a Chinese girlfriend from Manchuria (I think Harbin), and she couldn’t communicate much with one of her grandmas who was from Shanghai. (I cannot remember the details, but I think the grandma was still living in Shanghai.) Another example is that in Taiwan (which is not a huge country) there were two big different Chinese languages (Hokkien and Hakka), and sometimes they wrote things in three different languages. (Mandarin Chinese being the third. As to English, sometimes they had English as a fourth language, too. Very rarely.)
I think that the European (or any other logical) concept of an ethnic group presupposes a common language.
By the way there’s a North-South (also Middle) divide in Vietnam, too, but the dialects are more or less mutually intelligible (not 100% with the northernmost vs. southernmost, it’s a bit like Berlin and Bavarian dialects, but they are similar enough to each other). They are also not totally fond of each other. But they like each other relative to outsiders.
You keep arguing against a straw man. There is a gulf between “advantage” and sine qua non/total exclusion based on credentials.
Thaler’s models indeed “take advantage of predictable human activity” the scope of which is necessarily limited. Thaler doesn’t claim to be able to model accurately ALL human activities. He would be a madman or a fool to claim so. Behavioral economics is useful precisely because its claims are context-specific, not generalized, and, far more importantly, because it recognizes human irrationality (which is therefore necessarily not wholly predictable).
By arbitrage earlier, I mean all profit-making activities based on imperfect information (or limited distribution information), not specifically arbitrage in the financial services sense. Either way, while machines are far faster at closing the opportunities for arbitrage by, well, taking advantage of them, they have not PRECLUDED such opportunities in the first place. Perfectly predicting human behavior is currently and, for the near future, science-fiction.
That doesn’t mean you can’t predict that a certain (“profitable”) percentage of the people in the aggregate will behave in a certain way. Indeed you can and make a nice living out of it (e.g. direct-mailing to use an antiquated example). But that is NOT the same thing as being able to predict the behaviors of all people all the time. And until that happens, decision makers (including those in the military) are going to continue to prepare for the last war and run into nasty surprises or what statisticians call black swans. THAT you can bank on.
I didn’t know Poroshenko did Judo/Sambo. BUT… I also couldn’t find a single photograph or video of him in a Judogi or Sambo jacket/shorts/shoes on the Internet.
Judo/Sambo is not bicycle-riding. It is a highly perishable skill (and I don’t simply mean the physical attributes that decline necessarily with age). Supposedly Putin is a lifelong Judo practitioner. What little footage of him I’ve seen (doing Uchi-Komi and Randori lightly for the media) tells me that he keeps up at least a bit. His reaction time and smoothness looked pretty decent for an old (probably a bit rusty) guy in one of the footages when he did a Tai-Otoshi in Nage-Komi and a couple of Ash-Waza in Randori. In another footage I saw, he took a throw, albeit from a junior player (threw him overhead with a Seoi-Nage), and didn’t seem to get hurt, which tells me that his Ukemi (break-falling) skill is still intact. In other words, he didn’t strike me as a phony and looked like a guy who has practiced Judo.
In contrast, there is no evidence that Poroshenko ever practiced Judo or Sambo after his early years. Maybe he’s been practicing secretly in private. Or maybe he is like high school football stars with huge bellies as middle aged men who couldn’t run 25 yards without having a heart attack now. I’ve also never seen him show up at international Judo events as Putin and Battulga do.
My money would still be on Battulga first. Then Putin. And then other world leaders. I do know that the probability is exceedingly high that either man could squash our glorious leader, President Trump, like a bug. The God-Emperor, by all reports, absolutely despises physical exertion and considers it harmful to good health and longevity.
I generally try not to respond to no- to low-value comments, but this is so breathtakingly ignorant that I must.
I am not even going to comment on the whole thing. Just pointing out that, er, Japan has the likes of Ainu, Koreans, Chinese, and Ryukuan (e.g. Okinawans), who are either non-Japanese or “sub groups” (i.e. non-Yamato Japanese), should suffice.
What’s happened in all these countries is that the central government and the dominant regional group in charge have done an excellent job of obliterating the regional linguistic and cultural legacies and subsuming them to the “national” culture. But even after the cultures and languages have been bulldozed over, the DNA testing exposes the genetic structure.*
*However, don’t take this to mean that I think the Japanese are equally as heterogeneous as, say, Indians.
Are you talking to this “Daniel Chieh” or all Chinese ethnics with the “guys” part? If the latter, why are you an individual, but he a part of a collective?
As for traitors, in my view, the biggest intelligence mole and disaster in known memory of people still in the field has been Robert Hanssen who sold out his – our (I am assuming that you are a fellow American) – country to the Soviets and later to the Russians, and who also unspeakably shamed his wife.
I guess, following your logic, we should repatriate all these American men of Northwestern European descent back to their original homeland, eh?
Need I point out that FAR more Americans of Japanese descent nobly and patriotically died fighting for this country than ever was suspected, let alone convicted, of betraying it in WWII? Look up 442nd RCT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
I thought Byzantium is regarded positively in Russia, as a sort of predecessor civilization…or do you mean antipathy by Latin Christendom against Byzantium?
You get less conflict with China.
The Taiwan conflict is a frozen conflict, but as the former Soviet space showed, such conflicts do not remain frozen forever.
fair point, but I think you might be reading too much into it. I don’t think anyone reasonable wants total exclusion, but credentials can be a useful shortcut. For instance I will trust and even seek out, for example german_reader on the interpretation of local German realities(reiner for hungary) more than some non german discutuer. but let’s drop it, I agree with the broader point.
as per economic modeling of human behavior and arbitrage, again, you are completely right….as you say, for the near future. so far the scope was limited by processing power and people writing the algos. but the machines are starting to write their own algos and there are at least a dozen of quantum computing startups(no idea how useful they might be). although I am still skeptical on how far this may lead, I am today much more open to the idea of complete ‘digitalization’ than a few years ago. what we call irrationality may just be another probability variable for a machine.
it’s hard to predict when such scifi breakthroughs may occur, but there is a golden arbitrage opportunity in it for sure. some say it may reach a ‘critical mass’ (whatever that means) of learned machines and will snowball from there. personally, I call bollocks, but than again, i’m no computer wizard so I might not see through the fog.
Well, if that were to happen, I hope my descendants will be on the side of the Butlerian Jihad. 🙂
Excellent points as usual.
It’s mentioned by his former teachers/school administrators (such as in this article) and Poroshenko himself claims this.
I found a video searching in Cyrillic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHsbE0nMy3w
He may, or may not, be one of the people shown in video at the 11 second mark.
This is probably correct. He’s not totally sedentary, playing tennis once in a while – but so did Yeltsin. In interview Poroshenko has claimed that judo and sambo are his favorite sports and he claims to practice them but there is no evidence of it, and there would be if he really did.
Ya hya Chouhada!
No I was referring to the antipathy which the Russians traditionally have to Byzantium. Here the medieval Russian chronicle, where the Byzantines described in the spirit of Edward Gibbon http://radzivilovskaya-letopis.ru/index.php?id=84.
This antipathy entered the Russian language – the word “Byzantium” in the Russian language, is synonymous with decadence, cowardice, duplicity, despotism and cruelty.
This is evident in artistic literature (historical and fantasy) – in Russian, many books about the ancient world, medieval Europe. There are books about the hunters of mammoths, ancient China, medieval Japan, the Abbasid Caliphate (all this in the eyes of the Russian people interesting and attractive civilization). But about Byzantium, there is nothing. There is a novel “Julian the Apostate”, where the wonderful ancient world is killed in a collision with a repulsive Byzantine mob. A positive Byzantines Russian literature does not know.
But ancient Greece (and to a lesser extent, Rome) are perceived super positive – as the realm of beauty and harmony
Here from the exhibition of students of Academy of arts (Petersburg) 2016
http://s018.radikal.ru/i506/1711/d7/9692e02047cb.jpg
http://s018.radikal.ru/i510/1711/0c/75acc19403bb.jpg
You are mixing two things: credentialism and knowledge. Just a matter of forensic mental experiment–recall what you see when you go into any medical doctor office, right, you see doctor’s credentials all over the walls, be it dentist or a heart specialist. Credentialism? Credentialism, and a very good one. After that comes knowledge–a craft, a matter of substance, so to speak. In military field, however, which on the public forums dominated by the anonymous fanboys, who never spent a day in uniform, let alone in any command position, and who understand “war” through Hollywood and Tom Clancy I found, at some point of time, to be simply honest about my background and, actual, name. If not for the US getting itself into Ukraine, I may have stayed largely anonymous, writing once in a while some strategy article here and there. Times changed dramatically since 2013, and I mean absolute tectonic shift–I found it necessary to use whatever means to point out a complete bankruptcy of an “American way of war” and highly dangerous ideology and philosophy behind it and my book on that issue is coming out relatively soon, I am in the phase of initial editing of my 99% completed manuscript and formatting it in accordance to publisher’s guidelines. Guess what will be on the first pages of the book? Yep, my “credentials” but that, being merely a normal practice of any publication, does not liberate me from the necessity to actually advance my theses and defend them. That is not credentialism–this is knowledge and experience of a person, my background simply making these theses worthy of debate–nothing more. In the end, my theses may be wrong. Obviously, in most of what relates to Soviet/Military affairs I am ready to argue and have a very good shot on proving most of my ideas right with anybody with the exception, and you may have guessed it already, of Russia’s own senior command officer corps (most of them with General Staff Academy and very serious command and technical expertise credentials and knowledge with experience) and here I am mostly a listener and a student. The fact that people know who I am–well, my task was to say so, it is people’s problem, not mine, to deal with it however they want. Obviously there will be some who would love me to stay anonymous fanboy. They get frustrated.
I am inclined to resolve this in China’s favor for that reason, but do read the Blagojevich quote.
And if this is important to China, and it is, it seems reasonable that China would be prepared to make a deal.
There is precedent here in the deal China made with the UK for Hong Kong, though the UK idiotically negotiated on behalf of rights for Hong Kongers instead of actual advantages for Britain itself.
The data clearly show that Chinese-Americans are a security threat.
They need not even be disloyal per se–the PRC could simply threaten family on the mainland, for instance (or reward them).
It’s quite clear that “Daniel” cares more about Chinese than Americans. I can’t blame him for this, but like many if not most Chinese he’s completely unable to see the perspective of non-Chinese.
And yes, certainly the longer an ethnic group is resident in America–without being refreshed by continuous waves of immigration–the less likely they are to be any kind of an espionage threat. Even non-whites.
Japanese were very much a threat in 1941 (particularly on Hawaii), but today the idea of Japanese-Americans committing themselves to the Emperor is ridiculous.
I’ll close in noting that discrimination is a positive good, not a negative one. Exclusion is the basis of community.
I addressed Daniel Chieh, but this mentality is common to many if not most Chinese. As I stated previously, it’s quite comparable to the mentality of the Jews. Fortunately the Chinese lack the verbal facility of the Jews and look physically different.
I’m not sure that I can call the Chinese who betrayed American secrets to China traitors at all. They gave our secrets to their fellow countrymen. If anything they’re patriots, and we’re fools for pretending civic nationalism is a workable concept.
That said, even if we accept this dubious concept that anyone can become American regardless of ethnic or racial background, your comparison of Chinese espionage to the Americans who betrayed our country ignores the matter of probability. As fraction of population share the number of old stock Americans who betrayed America is very small compared to Chinese (or Jews).
CUCK.
Two things you should know:
1 – the 442nd RCT was sent to the ETO
2 – Japanese on Hawaii assisted downed Japanese aviators!
Tired of seeing these Boomer nationalists on the Unz Review.
Well I assume that credentials come with some degree of knowledge. I meant arrogant, as if someone reads your comments for the first time and doesn’t know you made a point in an earlier thread or article where you presented a clean argument. Cross linking might help but I understand it may be laborious. Personally, I don’t have a problem with credentialism in technical areas. I am more skeptical with humanities.
Is the book in Russian or English?
English, it is being published in the US.
Many Chinese don’t even have family in the PRC. The commies killed off mine, for one.
And yet I have not once agitated against your interests, and indeed have supported freedom of association many times, which you would know if you ever read me. That I am not thrilled with the new concept of the US which is essentially a byword for “gays, feminism and endless atomization” should not be surprising.
Beyond that I have absolutely no reason to blissfully accept being attacked for being part of a group, or to dismiss my considerable efforts, sacrifices and contributions just because someone on the internet think he’s better.
Additionally, I am married with family. Your ramblings essentially constitute a desire to threaten my family, and no sane and normally functioning man would be pleased with that.
This is straight up wrong. The Han Chinese are actually very homogeneous especially considering they occupy a geographic area larger than Europe.
https://medium.com/@NoahCarl/population-structure-among-han-chinese-is-about-the-same-as-among-native-britons-b0b0896dbce7
Basically except for among the Han and Nanyue mixed population of the deep South in Guangdong and Guangxi and to a lesser degree the heavily mountainous Fujian coast the Han Chinese have fst values of around 0.000x. This is a sign of constant genetic admixture and population exchange. The idea that the Chinese are a multi ethnic people’s is a creation of late Qing Imperial ideological to hold their empire together and subsequent Communist ethnicity policy adopted from the Soviet Union to justify their hold of the non Han frontier.
Hey Daniel Chieh,
I think once a person takes on ethno-nationalism and holds onto it with their molars, there’s probably not much you can do to convince them. You are a priori not welcome and they will make sure you feel it. And as far as I know, I’m not sure it has some universal form of a dhimmi clause*.
Yeah – what do you think we are – cucks?
Peace.
Note: Not to be confused with Santa Claus, Dhimmi Claus climbs down your chimney and doesn’t really do anything except move onto the next house. He used to leave you 10 dirhams, but since he is no longer a military age male, he is exempted. More’s the pity, I could use some spare silver.
What exactly could have Britain demanded and gotten from the PRC for Britain?
The PRC would take over in 1997, whether Britain liked it or not.
They would not be able to stop them.
In Taiwan’s case, they are still stoppable, but that won’t last.
Yeah, sure, the PRC would start a major war for a tiny patch of land which would have any inherent value completely destroyed by said war.
Got any more in your crystal ball?
Sounds like Gore Vidal’s novel, but then Julian has been a popular theme since the 18th century for critics of Christianity.
I’m honestly surprised by this since I would have thought that Byzantium is viewed more positively in Russia given the religious links and that it was seen as a sort of predecessor civilization under the tsars (Moscow as the “Third Rome” iirc). Seems not that different from Western Europe (even though Byzantium is viewed more positively nowadays by many, not least because of the anti-Islam issue).
This is suprising. I’m a of southern descent and i always thought that northeners looked very different. Living in Singapore i can tell the mainlanders out just by looks.
You do realize that phrase can be used to say anything about any group, right? It’s actually worse than that – they are weasel words used when the author of the statement knows clearly that 1) the majority (“most”) is not what the author claims them to be and 2) he does not have any precise or even approximate figures, but wants to leave the impression of a pervasive (“many”) trait attributed to the group under examination, almost always based his own prejudices.
At the end of the day, I am NOT too keen on immigration from China. And my belief about that is based on some concrete analysis that Chinese immigrants have relatively low degrees of assimilation: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/cr_76.pdf
But that objection is not racial (Filipinos, Vietnamese, and Koreans, on the other hand, display high rates of assimilation, as can be seen from the study). And to claim that Chinese are, therefore, not able to assimilate AT ALL is factually wrong.
Keep making assertions does not make them true.
Whether civic nationalism is workable or not depends on many variables, including (but not limited to) the selectivity of the immigrants and whether or not the host society encourages assimilation.
It certainly worked in the past – even with nonwhites. A fine example of this would be the Korean-American WWII war hero, Colonel Young Oak Kim:
But I would certainly agree that the current situation holds neither of those conditions. Immigrants today aren’t selected well for high degrees of assimilation and the host society, very regrettably, doesn’t encourage assimilation, which indeed doesn’t bode well for “civic nationalism” (which is just a fancy way of saying “patriotism” of old).
As for this:
The intelligence community and the justice system would disagree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_people_convicted_of_spying_against_the_United_States
Traitors to the U.S. have been, by and large, “old stock” Americans, not ethnic types. And especially damaging ones, in particular, such as Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames.
Having said that, I would most certainly want our government to vet very carefully those citizens with extensive foreign contacts, residency, and/or close foreign family members before providing requisite security clearance (as it did with me). And that scrutiny should be even closer on those candidates whose backgrounds relate to hostile or competitor countries.
But, the key is to vet individuals, not condemn whole groups of people. Anglo-American jurisprudence doesn’t (and shouldn’t) do blood-guilt.
Grow up.
If the men of 442nd RCT were not deemed reliable and patriotic, they wouldn’t have been sent anywhere crucial. And if they were traitors, why would they fight any harder against the allies of their “true country”? Their heroism, sacrifice, and patriotism to their – our – country, despite our government’s unjust treatment of their ethnic compatriots (or themselves) is historical record.
Furthermore, thousands of Japanese-Americans were sent to the Pacific Theater:
Two or three did (I assume you are referring to the Niihau Incident). Hardly enough to generalize to hundreds of thousands of people. For that matter, the German Abwehr engaged in acts of sabotage and intelligence operations on U.S. soil, at times with the aid of few German-Americans, but I am glad we didn’t question the loyalty of all German-Americans during World War II. Imagine having to intern German-Americans, starting with Eisenhower.
I am not a Boomer. But I also do get tired… of the poor manners and low value-added commenters on Unz sometimes. Screaming “CUCK” is not a particularly convincing or interesting argument.
The notion that “Han Chinese are formed by 2 quite distinct clusters of Northerners and Southerners” is lazily misleading hence largely wrong. What is “North” and what is defined as “South”?
Many good studies have strongly suggest that Han Chinese population is clearly characterized by a continuous genetic gradient along a north-south geographical axis, rather than a distinct clustering of “northern” and “southern” samples.
This quite fits with the fact of constant large waves of Han Chinese migrations towards the south and integrations among themselves in the last 2 millennia, so much so to such a degree that there’s no much difference among the average Northern” Han from north most point of Heilongjiang province today, “Southern” Han from Sichuan, and even more typical “Southern” Han from southern Hunan province where Chairman Mao came from. (for instance, does Mao look like a “Northern Han” or “Southern Han” to you ?)
Thus Han Chinese are indeed quite homogeneous in most Han heartlands except China’s far southern frontiers noticeably 3 regions – Guangxi province, Guangdong Province (mainly by Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew people) and mountainous Fujian Province(mainly by Hakka people, etc).
Traditionally both Guangdong and Fujian are have been 2 single largest sources for perhaps over 95% of overseas Chinese populations around the world in SE Asia(inc. Singapore), North America and Europe, who have given the world the first, yet a bit misleading, impression that they are the average (Han) Chinese. Genetically they are defined as Han Chinese , yet the least typical.
So Duke and Qin is quite right. You are also right, if you define “Southerners” mainly as people speaking Cantonese, Hakka, and Teochew dialects originally from Guangxi, Guangdong and Fujian provinces (note that we’re talking about average here, so even in these 3 provinces, you still can easily find nowadays many very “Northern” Han – both genetically and by looking – since their forefathers just haven’t had enough time to intermingle with the average locals yet).
You are showing your lack of understanding of the goals of the PRC and Taiwan’s value.
They openly threatened with a kinda sorta military solution, I think Deng Xiaoping told Thatcher that he could walk in the next day if he wanted to, and that there would be nothing Thatcher could do to stop it. To which Thatcher replied something like “then the eyes of the world would know what China is like” or something.
Anyway, militarily taking over Hong Kong would not have been a “major war”, it would have been similar to Russia’s takeover of Crimea, except that it would have been probably quickly recognized internationally.
Thanks for the in depth reply. Goes quite well with what Razib Khan has said about Chinese genetics. I’m Hainanese patri linearly, we have the most austro asiatic look compared to other Chinese. The rapper Namewee has this type of distinct look, contrast this to Wang Lee Hom in the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIF8xvSA0Gw
But since Hong Kong has comparably little non-artificial value as opposed to Crimea, whatever value it did have would be destroyed by fighting a war on it.
Britain in the ’80s (since you mentioned Thatcher) was not the Ukraine. It was a first-tier power, and while it couldn’t match China for manpower it could easily make things not a walkover. Though if you can source the Thatcher quote I’d be interested.
Compare those from say Beijing, Chongqing and Guangzhou. Not only they speak different languages/ dialects but even look differently. Still everyone considers himself Han Chinese. Fascinating.
Of course we are all Han, it has never been about phenotypical purity. Han Chinese as an ethnic group is derived by patri liner descent and common culture. Much like the Turks and Arabs, for example there are black arabs and white Arabs, there are also many dialects in arabic. There may be many Han phenotypes but ultimately we trace our ancestory back to the yellow river valley via the male line.
My previous comment was meant to be a reply to you, but i forgot the reply button.
De facto “Moscow – Third Rome” is a fake of 19th century. The monk Philotheus in the early 16th century used this phrase in the letter, implying that Moscow remained the last stronghold of the true faith (after Rome fell into heresy, while Constantinople captured by the Turks) . It was (according to Philotheus) a sign of the approaching end of the world. This Philotheus recommended to forget worldly goods and cares about the soul.
Contemporaries of Philotheus were completely deaf to his ideas.
But in the 19th century the words of an obscure monk, have been used in propaganda (mostly anti-Russian) as an example of the sinister state ideology, by which can scare people. Of course the meaning of the words of Philotheus was completely distorted.
Here.
OK. That got me interested so I went looking for more, and I think that version is a somewhat distorted account. Here is Mrs. Thatcher’s version of what she said:
compared to the Chinese version of what they said:
and Mrs. Thatcher’s account of the effect:
http://www.scmp.com/article/48108/thatcher-reveals-dengs-threat-seize-hong-kong-day
So it’s still interesting. I don’t know why the first guy altered it (since he says he follows Thatcher); either he has literacy issues or he’s somewhat anti-Thatcher. Thanks for that.
It would’ve been a walkover. The US would’ve tacitly recognized the takeover (i.e. there would’ve been no trade embargo at a minimum), so Hong Kong could continue to trade with the outside world. The Chinese started their first special economic zone at the time, Deng wasn’t stupid, he’d have made Hong Kong another one.
The UK had difficulties defending the Falklands on the Atlantic Ocean against Argentina. Hong Kong is quite a bit farther away. China was already much much bigger than Argentina. Hong Kong had a land border with China, militarily indefensible.
Questionable. Probably it would’ve cost the Chinese a lot of money to prop it up initially, but after a couple of years things would’ve returned to normalcy. China was an important US quasi-ally in the Cold War then raging, so Hong Kong would not have been cut off from US or allied markets (like Australia). The human capital would’ve stayed there. China was anyway set to grow fast.
Correct. This is why he didn’t invade.
The Falklands are also barely-inhabited. There’s no way a defense of HK would have been successful but the mounting of one would have wrecked the place.
Maybe. It was a retort in context.
Highly unlikely. We’re both just speculating here, but you’re a Hungarian and I’m an American, and I don’t think this would have been done under Reagan in the climate of the time.
Maybe. But then China would’ve gotten closer to the USSR. This was the height of the “second cold war” under Reagan (early 80s), and as I wrote China was an important quasi-ally against the USSR. Was Reagan unhappy to deal with shady characters against the USSR? I don’t think so.
Since the UK was a closer ally, they would’ve withheld legal recognition of the border change until the UK itself recognized it. (Hence my wording that they’d have “tacitly” recognized it.) But they probably wouldn’t have started a trade embargo, which is what would have mattered.
There was no reason to invade once the British agreed to the hand over of the whole territory in 1997.
Only in theory. Who would have defended it?
Sending British soldiers there on a suicide mission would’ve been senseless and perhaps also politically ruinous to Thatcher. Locals wouldn’t have defended it.
The US was neutral in the Falkland War (while secretly helping the UK), I’d expect similar behavior towards China. They’d have done nothing overtly, but covertly probably would’ve helped the British with spy satellite data and perhaps they’d have helped the evacuation effort as well. There’s no reason to think any other American intervention, when the USSR and China were already looking at normalizing their relations.
Interesting, but didn’t Ivan III marry a niece of the last Byzantine emperor? I also thought the Russian imperial double-headed eagle ultimately derives from the last Byzantine dynasty, the Paleologoi as a result of that marriage. But admittedly I lack the faculties to come to a judgement about this and its significance. Maybe AK can write something about it 🙂
Don’t have time to get into this now but you are right.
True, but the relationship with Palaeologus were not great value for Ivan . When Andrew Paleolog (brother of Sophia Paleolog) expressed his intention to sell (for a modest sum) his rights to the Byzantine throne. Ivan did not want to spend on this business a dime, so Andrew had to sell those rights to the Spanish Ferdinand and Isabella .
To the proposals of the Pope to recognize the Moscow rulers, as the heirs of Byzantium, the response was “Lol no.” Ivan the Terrible for example, stated that such claims is a sin.
In addition, Moscow’s tsars regarded themselves as the descendants of the Emperor Augustus, so the low-born Palaeologus for them were simply parvenus.
This is a controversial issue. Some historians believe that of the eagle, borrowed from Byzantium, other historians believe that from Germany. In any case, it was not a claim to the Byzantine inheritance
I didn’t mean to imply that Russia under the tsars regarded itself as a direct continuation of Byzantium in political terms. It just seems very strange to me if Byzantium is viewed negatively in Russia; my impression was that Tsarist Russia conceived of itself as a defender of Orthodox Christianity (not least against the Latin West which backstabbed Byzantium), and that even today Russians feel some sort of solidarity with other peoples of Orthodox background, even non-Slavic ones like Greeks or Orthodox-affiliated populations in the Near East.
Yes, it’s weird. But it’s true. Here is a film: ancient Rus
http://pic1.pb.wtf/images/10/lvwwx.jpg
and the Byzantines
http://www.kino-teatr.net/acter/album/1441/700808.jpg
Guess who are the bad guys?
There is even a Russian film where the good crusaders (!) confront the vile Byzantines. The Orthodox Church is trying to change the image of Byzantium, but of course it does not work.
The opposite – ancient Greece, which (for Russian) has always been good. Here’s an example of illustrations for the book, which was published in the USSR for the education of pioneers
https://imgur.com/a/BScfI#vFw66dW
I find that very odd given how Russians in the middle ages were at times in conflict with Latin Christians like the Teutonic Knights, and there was at least some religious dimension to that. I mean, even in Soviet times there was something like Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky movie, with its grotesque Teutonic Knights supported by hypocritical Latin churchmen and giving off a strong crusader vibe (at least that’s how I remember it, has been years since I saw it). So I would have expected more sympathy for the Byzantines.
Were Russian views of Byzantium always that negative, even in the 18/19th centuries when Russia fought against the Ottomans? Or was there a change to a more negative view after 1917?
Film was Soviet. Of course Soviets hated Christian Byzantium and had more positive feelings towards classic Greece. That’s Soviet, not Russian, culture.
Here is Russian conservative/reactionary philosopher K. Leontiev about Byzantium:
There is a element of cargo cultism here, of course, in a lot of ways it was pretense (as was Enlgihtenment recreation of ancient Greece or Rome).
Fascinating? Now you compare those from say Budapest, Copenhagen, Genoa and Marseille, not only they speak different languages by all means, not even dialects for Maria’s sake, but even look differently. Still everyone considers himself European, or “White”. Errr…repellently enchanting, isn’t it?
Primary focus of self-identification for most Europeans is their own nation, or sometimes maybe even just region, a sense of pan-European identity does exist to some extent, but is much, much weaker and often left unspoken nowadays (since it excludes a lot of “new Europeans”). I’d suppose Chinese identity, with its millennia-old tradition of being unified in a single state (temporary divisions notwithstanding), is a lot stronger and more uncontroversial.
Hey G_R,
Yeah it is a bit strange given that the imperial guard of the Byzantine Emperors were selected from the stalwart Varangian Rus:
https://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/04/10-fascinating-facts-varangian-guard/
Peace.
Don’t know though if those can be regarded as “Russian” in any meaningful sense, they were more like real Vikings (also some Anglo-Saxons), e.g. Harald Hardrada, the Norwegian king who was killed at Stamford Bridge in 1066, was in that guard for some years.
But the religious links must have been important, Russia became Christian through contacts with Byzantium after all.
Yeah – not a good year to be named “Harald” or “Harold”, old Harold got it in the face at Hastings.
Yeah – that was – and I would imagine, would still be considered – a rather big deal.
Peace.
Russian movie about the good crusaders and the bad Byzantines was filmed in 1995, so it’s not Soviet cinema. Mentioned above the novel “Julian the Apostate” published in 1895 (the author is a staunch Orthodox Christian, Dmitry Merezhkovsky)
No it is the Russian culture. In Russian culture (in any period since the 18th century) has a huge number of works of art dedicated to the ancient world
http://sschool8.narod.ru/73_Iliada/7452qq.jpg
https://regnum.ru/uploads/pictures/news/2017/02/26/regnum_picture_148809419386621_normal.jpg
http://www.staratel.com/pictures/ruspaint/big/560-1.jpg
http://www.dagestanpost.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gal25_6.___jpg.jpg
But Byzantium for Russian absolutely not interesting. Byzantium in Russian art does not exist (except for a few Church buildings).
Of course were marginal philosophers (such as Leontiev), but the General situation with the Hellenomania and Byzantophobia this does not change.
yes: )
maybe the informants don’t but everyone else does : ) people successfully conceal colorblindness and other such things without even trying – it just never comes up (unless they want to become an electrician or something)
I don’t remember how Jaynes addresses this, if at all. I vaguely remember he attributes the change to brain plasticity and changes in culture as the main mechanism (this would solve the problem of how it could have occurred everywhere at once, but is actually even more incredible)
I was channelling this guy:
watch?v=GbgTTTYd6UA
I’ll try to find the bit about the power relations and social climate in Egypt and transcribe it here.
However “Crusader” in Russian has rather positive connotations, “knight” and “paladin” certainly a positive connotation (synonym of valor and nobility). But “Byzantium” and “Byzantine” are definitely negative meaning (in fact, these words – abusive language).
Where the crusaders fighting the Saracens, they positively portrayed in Russian art. There are verses on this subject (e.g. Pushkin), in classical ballet “Raymonda” good Crusader Jean de Brienne kills the bad moor Abdurrahman on stage (its good, that SJW don’t go to the ballet). This is the crusaders in Russian painting
https://pravoslavie.fm/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1024px-Vrubel_M._A._1856-1910_The_Princess_of_the_Dream_1896.jpg
But the good Byzantines in Russian art does not exist – too great an antipathy to them.
Russian society was still Soviet 4 years after the Soviet regime collapsed.
Impressions of Byzantium from non-Soviet Ukrainian culture was mixed: they were sneaky and cruel, but also civilized and impressive.
I suspect that the pre-Soviet Russian attitude was similarly ambivalent, but that the Soviets overemphasized the negative impressions of pre-Soviet Russian attitudes towards Byzantium. Byzantine Orthodoxy and monarchism were antithetical to Soviet values.
Sure, this was typical of the Enlightenment.
Undoubtedly true. However, if – hypothetically speaking – the rate of those liable to betray the U.S. or succumb to blackmail/bribery is 3% for ethnic Chinese relative to, say, 2% for other Americans with comparable professional backgrounds, then the risk in hiring an ethnic is 50% higher.
Note that there are different risk scenarios, including:
(1) First generation immigrant engineer grows nostalgic and decides he wants to make a contribution to make “the Land of our Ancestors” great again in the world.
(2) First generation immigrant (sometimes second generation) succumbs to threats or blandishments directed at remaining family in China. (“We’ll make your sister principal of the school where she teaches if you can help us out with some information.”)
(3) Rootless 3d generation suddenly discovers his “roots,” typically following a personal crisis, and decides to become a jihadi for Greater China.
Of course, similar mechanisms apply to all immigrants, but China (along with Russia) is the principal international power competing with the U.S.
Also, one should consider that there may be countervailing factors that may make some non-immigrant Americans more risky in sensitive positions in some situations, to say nothing of more relaxed work habits.
There are nearly 41,000 Chinese restaurants in the United States, three times the number of McDonalds franchise units.
How many Chinese restaurants in Russia?
You do not understand Martyanov’s role. While it is possible that he genuinely hates America and that he genuinely is deluded with his belief in Russia’s military superiority his activities here in the US might be what the MIC really wants. They always like scare mongering and convincing politicians of some missile gap or something in armament that needs to be bridged with generous spending of public money.
Looks like China has already reverse-engineered Andrei Martyanov.
Duke of Qin, you sound like a Chinese version of Martyanov. Very high BS quotient and our shit does not stink spiel.
Yet even so, it’s worth pointing out that their opposition played a part in delaying US entry in WW1
The WW1 did a job on Germans in America. Germans as an ethnic group have virtually disappeared. No other ethnic group can match the speed with which Germans were Americanizing themselves during and after the WW1. This is very telling about German national character as well as the myth of the American melting pot that in reality is preceded with the crushing bones preprocessing.
I am not knowledgeable at all about art, but I wanted to ask you if one of my impressions is correct. In both of the paintings of comment #148 there is a very high contrast between the colours and very solid shapes. It immediately reminded me of Soviet posters. Is that a distinct style of Russian painting?
I consider this commendable. Compare this to Ukrainians who are Russians both by culture, genetics and history and doing everything to persuade themselves and everyone else that they are not. Shizofrenia.
Yeah, sure, FUKUSI [fuck uk + us + india] would start a major war for a tiny patch of land which would have any inherent value completely destroyed by said war.
Fix it for you.
That’d be FUKUS and its Indian soul mates down to a tee.
FUKUS [fuck uk + us] as the most rapacious land grabbers of all time need no introduction, presumably.
But India’s genocidal wars to annex the so-called NE must be one of the
best kept secret of all time !
http://nagalandmusings.blogspot.com/2013/01/indias-untold-genocide-of-nagas.html
When anglos and Indians brag that they have many shared ‘values‘ ,
they really got a point there you know.
Ukrainians are genetically closer to Slovaks and Belarusians than they are to Russians.
Historically Ukrainians spent more time within Lithuania or Poland than under Moscow.
Cultural distance is comparable to that of Spanish vs. Portuguese or Italians. Or Danes and Swedes.
Apparently you still dont know what uncle sham does for a living, ?
George Carlin
*What the US produces in abundance is bullshit and bombs. It can’t produce a toaster worth shit, it can’t furnish 80 million of its citizens with adequate health care, it can’t keep all of its citizens productively employed, but it sure can bomb the shit out of other countries and it sure can pump out bullshit to justify it. *
http://tinyurl.com/5cj9tq
One of the most hyped about bs is
the chicoms stole our nuke tech
http://tinyurl.com/29gx8av
The pentagoons have no qualm persecuting an innocent us citizen in order to demonise china
http://tinyurl.com/6t37pjd
AK: Please don’t use link shorteners in the future.
But you know China wouldn’t do that sort of stupidity, right? So you agree, otherwise Chinese leadership would be just as stupid as everyone else, no?
kid,
Not that I know of,
hhhhhh
So far the only land grabbers in the 20/21C are
FUKUSI, !
One thing I know about Indian trolls, they always want to have the
last words !
hhhhhh
Be my guest my dear,
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Why does Russia or other countries need so many Sinologists? Never Forget National Humiliation is a recent book by a tenured American Sinologist who noticed something on a trip back to his ancestral China. The use of this four character slogan, the cynical indoctrination of this meme into the population by the government sums up the author’s insight. As the tedious notes acknowledge, other writings by other Sinologists have noticed how the party rides the unruly beast of 1.5 billion Chinese. I can’t highly recommend enough The Porcelain Thief by Huan Hsu, recounting his adventures on an American Chinese in a trip back to his ancestral China. It provides a believable picture of how things are made to happen there. I fail to see the great mystery of “understanding” China, requiring legions of Sinologists. The Chinese ruling cadres act to perpetuate their rule by riding herd as best they can on an immense horde of Chinese many of them given over heart and soul to the traditional Chinese MO of questionable business ethics. Where’s the mystery?
Because it is intellectually disingenuous and lazy to only draw from sources that agree with your beliefs?
Lol.
Soviet art was characterized by a very different type of painting – soviet painter were impressionists.
http://i057.radikal.ru/1712/0e/1c9c95a67685.jpg
Work of students of Academy of fine arts (among which were “ancient” panels) you can watch here http://yura-falyosa.livejournal.com/1500684.html (painting in Chinese topic – Chinese students, the rest of the painting – the work of Russian students).
As you can see in the exhibition is the painting of very different styles. So I don’t think that there is a special “Russian” type of painting.
The feudal crusaders as the “good guys” it’s definitely not a Soviet idea. A movie about the good crusaders and the bad Byzantines – a weird thing for orthodox Russia, but this movie cannot be considered “anti-Christian”: the crusaders were Christians too
For three centuries the enthusiasm for the ancient world have not changed. There is a deeper reason than the fashion of the enlightenment age.
Westerners (Westernizers) attacking an Orthodox country sounds pro-Bolshevik to me.
Facts are funny.
What movie is this you are both talking about anyway?
Film “Crusader” 1995
http://st.baskino.co/uploads/images/2014/643/ifvi650.jpg
By any chance, Anthony, they’re all Jewish Russian?
Nope. Half of them are LBHs White guys (Losers Back Home) who want to score some ugly Chinese chicks once they land in Beijing.
Ask Prince Harry what they should do.
Imagine, if the US consistently ridicule, trash-talk, make a boogeyman out of Irish, would Irish Americans immediately jump on the American train or feel attachment to their homeland? Irish slaves were once considered as an outcast by ruling British elite in the US. Overtime, once a new wave of boogeyman arrived, i.e., Jews, Irish Americans become fully assimilated as “Americans”.
If your logic is applied equally, there should be Exclusion of Jews in the US, and later make Israel a threat, so that your future White women won’t fall into a trap of Harvey Winstein sexual prowess.
Americans nowadays are mixed blood of Europeans, especially Eastern European blood with a tinge of past colonial master blood. But they claim as if they are direct descendants of colonial master blood.
Came upon a French girl whose father blood has been mixed with southern Italian, whose lineage goes further back to mixing with Negro migrants. But sure, with a deep eye socket and high brow, she sure is American as hell.
Roger.
To some extent this is true. It was highly qualified technical people (in different fields), who finally proved beyond doubt that the three WTC towers were brought down by explosives. Until they arrived on the scene it was essentially all shouting and hand waving.
And 9/11 did have serious geopolitical consequences.
Looking from the the dark side, the perpetrators faced difficult technical questions in preparing these buildings for demolition (not least in hiding what they were doing), but the project also depended on coordinated, immediate and high volume propaganda to launch the “War on Terror”.
I’m not sure whether propaganda falls under hard science or “faux-science” but it’s certainly somewhere over towards the sociology/psychology side.
In the wars with Turkey in the 18th century propaganda mostly used images of the ancient world, in the 19th century the theme of the liberation of the South Slavs.
“Were Russian views of Byzantium always that negative” – in medieval Russian Chronicles (which were written by Orthodox monks) innate mendacity and treachery of the Byzantines was common place, a kind of “cliché”. That is hostility to the Byzantine appeared at least 600 years before the age of enlightenment
I would take that line. Sorry to go back to WW2 – but it’s applicable throughout the ages.
At the battle of Kursk the Germans had superior heavy tanks (Tiger and Panther – better armament, armour and optics) but mechanically unreliable. They were also expensive to build, so there were fewer of them relative to the Russian T34’s. Also, these superior systems were frequently immobilized in minefields. 6th Guards Army alone had 69.688 anti-tank mines and 64.430 anti-personal mines in its first defensive belt (64km).
And it was a dumb idea in the first place to attack the Russians in well prepared defenses with numerically inferior forces.
I would be very interested to know what you would put on the curriculum and syllabi to bring a lawyer or political scientist up to scratch on military and geopolitical affairs so that he might, for example, be a useful staff member for a new secretary of Defence who had been CEO of a multinational (say Coca Cola). Or just a pundit…
You use reference to military service in a rather vague way.
For example I am only left to guess that my military service would need to be supplemented in a big way. And assuming that is so I should be interested in an analytical treatment of your reasons.
My service was, first, 5 years in school cadets which drilled or trained one afternoon in school term and had a two week camp once a year. To reach the rank of cadet under officer/second lieutenant I had to go to successive summer camps for NCO and then officer training. Apart from drill I could after that read a map, shòot accurately in a fire with movement exercise, instruct on on the use, cleaning and maintenance of a Bren submachine gun etc.
Then 3 months National Service in the Army before I was allowed to leave the country for my university education had me using 9mm Owen submachine guns, 25 pounder medium artllery and going on various day and night exercises.
After that I spent long enough in my universtiy’s RAF air training squadron to fly solo in a small monoplane. When I had to stop flying because I wasn’t fulle discharged from the Australian Army i got the British taxpayer, when I became eligible for the university’s (army) officer training corps where I was nominally in Signals but only demonstrating enthusiasm in training as a parachutist during which I did eight jumps from various aircraft and balloons.
I daresay I was much better trained than the poor American and British boys who marched off to be slaughtered in WW1.
So I had “military” experience, but what more would you prescribe before I set up as an op-ed writer and m morelilitary pundit? I don’t think you are going to have the gall tovl specify having been at risk of death by enemy action. So I wonder what more sophisticated specs you have in mind. I proffer the reminder that one of the leading pre WW2 military writers was only an Army Captain, namely Basil Liddell-Hart.
Concerning ZOG and Comintern advisors for CCP, your info was distorted in terms of timeline, and should be considered not true.
You raised a very salient point generally, Mr. Karlin. Although…
1. The vast China Studies industry in the USA is heavily shaped in its collective мировозрений by a basic Kissinger / Brzherzinskii “Paradigm” which could be summed up simply as “Always accommodate – nurture – open doors for – mildly criticize China, versus Always do the maximum to marginalize – squeeze – beat down – demonize Russia”. The Paradigm continues to reign. It encompassed the careers – habitual reflex thinking – patronage mentor relationships spanning at least two generations of Harvard Yale CFR Washington DC East Coast American elite. And if we think through the overall global developments over the last four decades, which coincided with the reign of the Kissinger Paradigm, the overall American national or imperial interest if you wish had been served poorly indeed by it. The China Studies industry is now one of the many lethal obstacle in the path of Trump Administration’s efforts to maneuver to a more distant and less trusting relationship to China, as well as a more business like and neutral relation to Russia. Like a good part of the US East Coast Jewish elite, the China gurus among the US think tanks are often de facto advocates for China.
2. The former USSR might not have attained a high “scientific” level of sinology,but it had a fundamental influence upon the course of China’ s modern history, ranging from the chaotic efforts by Trotsky – Stalin – Zinoviev to catastrophically micromanage an infant Chinese Communist Party from the 1920s to the 1930s, to the massive financial assistance to help Mao industrialize in the 1950s. And all of above ending in a most deadly geopolitical antagonism in the 1960s to mid 1980s, which played a vital but often ignored role in causing the USSR’s necessary but very tragic demise. This bitter soup I think could soon be tasted by the American elite who to this day do not give up on the belief that China could be Integrated into their Liberal Globalized Order. During the new and I think pragmatic and useful efforts to construct a China Russia partnership, in light of America’s continued dithering into collective neurosis and random hysteria, certain bitter lessons learned by the now dead Soviet czars and their ministers, especially insight from first hand deep interaction into the true nature of modern Chinese State, should not be discarded is passé or irrelevant. And you do not get to glimpse at the true nature of Chinese state merely by observing smart Chinese geeks in the Silicon Valley.
In all fairness, that was pretty much warranted.
Your assessment of establishment Washington views regarding Beijing WAS correct, but I should say no longer applies. As long as China was still nominally Communist and espoused the leftist party line, The US establishment was willing to be accommodating. However, the now reality of Chinese power, rather than the mere theoretical future Chinese capabilities poses an immediate threat to US hegemony not so much by action, but by it’s very existence. Furthermore I think the jig is up by now. It has been clear ever since the late Hu Jintao era that China is now no longer even operating under the pretense that it is a leftist regime and is now fully established itself as a conservative authoritarian nationalist state determined to uphold both strategic and more critically ideological independence from the West. The only people left in Washington since the late Obama era who are accommodating now are the business interests that do hundreds of billions in trade with China, a powerful force for sure, but I think no match ultimately for the Red and Blue Coalition of Pentagon and State Department. Expect China soon to be labeled with the “F” word (as in fascist) by the Western prestige press and you can expect conflict will surely follow. I think the Trump administration has somewhat thrown a spanner in this in that his election has weakened the corporate capitalist elements in the US that don’t want to see a Sino-US conflict but at the same time it has devastated the elements in State Department (the Clinton/Obama containment wing) that were beginning to push for a more confrontational stance. Should Trump lose the 2020 election to a Democratic contender, expect Sino-US conflict to reignite.
that’s remarkably coy on the impact of crusades, but I suppose par for the course for occidentalists. The catastrophic territorial loss following Manzikert was well on its way to be reversed. Few things are more pointless than alt history but had this process been completed the greek word for “Reconquista” would perhaps have some currency today. Except Latins found it expedient to sack and rape Constantinople in 1204, “westerners” partitioning the empire between themselves for a couple of generations- after which everything went to shit, terminally, despite some desperate attempts to stitch things back together
The Latins outside Constantinople may have found it expedient to sack it, but that was only because they were invited there by shifty Greeks who made promises they couldn’t keep, bearing out both the stereotypes to the max of brutish Latins and sly Greeks.
You are conflating “beliefs,” by which you apparently mean ungrounded opinions, with the broadly consensual knowledge of how the Chinese ruling party operates. The inculcation into the belief system of the general population of the four character slogan “Never forget national humiliation!” is token of the party’s view of China’s past humiliation and its intention to redress it. Again, why are legions of tenured Sinologists required? Clearly ad hoc responses by other countries will be made to various Chinese demarches on a case by case basis. I fail to see how historical studies serve any purpose in dealing with specific Chinese issues.
nonsense, it was originally aimed at Egypt. As for an ‘invitation’, you mean some frustrated prince scheming with the Latins (more like barbarian hordes, then)? As good a pretext as any, really
Frenchmen and Venetians are barbarian hordes? Perhaps, but the Greeks had a long history of using barbarians against each other. Maybe the Venetians were the wrong barbarians to use, by anyone who remembered the Massacre of the Latins.
Correct. Where’s the nonsense?
If we refer to barbarian hordes as the ones who brought down the Western empire, or sacked Rome, yes this applies rather well to people following in the footsteps of Alaric.
As for Venetians, for so many centuries beholden to Constantinople, they weren’t exactly the ‘muscle’ of the operation. Ironically, the later rise of Ottomans would seal Venice’s fate as an international player (ruinous naval wars on the background of declining commerce along eastern routes). Karma, probably, if belated