It's not the gun laws, it's the Islamists!

[Sandydragon]

China has some ambitions to be a global power.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/59ad20d6-f74b ... z4GeOKGZiF

[rowan]

China has ambitions of becoming a global financial power, of course. They have about 1/6 of the world's population to take care of and personally I'd like to see them succeed. I've spent a bit of time in China and also have Chinese relatives, and a more pleasant, modest and respectful people would be hard to find. In addition to which, they are notably studious, philosophical and refined. The sooner they replace America and its violent, racist culture as the world's major super power the better. But I don't think the Chinese have any interest in taking over the world by violent methods, and that's probably why they do not have a solitary military base in any other country, and have not recently invaded any country for reasons other than traditional border disputes with the exception of a couple of skirmishes with Vietnam.

Compare this to countries bombed by America since WWII:

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Belgian Congo 1964
Guatemala 1964
Dominican Republic 1965-66
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Lebanon 1982-84
Grenada 1983-84
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1981-92
Nicaragua 1981-90
Iran 1987-88
Libya 1989
Panama 1989-90
Iraq 1991
Kuwait 1991
Somalia 1992-94
Bosnia 1995
Iran 1998
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia – Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 2001
Iraq 2003
Libya 2011 (currently at it again)

This doesn't include bombings by other countries supported by America, such as Israel in Palestine & Saudi in Yemen, to name just two present examples, nor bombings by America itself, ostensibly on terrorist targets, such as within Syria (uninvited) and Iraq at the present. & neither does in include its drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen & elsewhere.

Meanwhile, where Britain is concerned, it's actually easier just to provide a list of the countries they haven't tried to invade in their history:

Andorra
Belarus
Bolivia
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Congo, Republic of
Guatemala
Ivory Coast
Kyrgyzstan
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Mali
Marshall Islands
Monaco
Mongolia
Paraguay
Sao Tome and Principe
Sweden
Tajikistan
Uzbekistan
Vatican City

[cashead]

I don't know if China has any actual military bases in other countries, but I hitched a ride in a Chinese military vehicle, driven by a Chinese dude in fatigues in Zimbabwe. That's a long way to drive from China.

They've got a bit of a presence in Africa already (IIRC, on the pretext of their sailors getting nabbed by Somali pirates a few years ago when that was all the rage), and it appears they're either building or have built one in Djibouti.

[cashead]

China has ambitions of becoming a global financial power, of course. They have about 1/6 of the world's population to take care of and personally I'd like to see them succeed. I've spent a bit of time in China and also have Chinese relatives, and a more pleasant, modest and respectful people would be hard to find. In addition to which, they are notably studious, philosophical and refined. The sooner they replace America and its violent, racist culture as the world's major super power the better. But I don't think the Chinese have any interest in taking over the world by violent methods, and that's probably why they do not have a solitary military base in any other country, and have not recently invaded any country for reasons other than traditional border disputes with the exception of a couple of skirmishes with Vietnam.

Holy shit dude, this reads like a paid political broadcast for the CCP, and you're just attempting to divert criticism of their actions beyond their borders through A) trying to justify it with a bizarre argument of "it happened within their borders as set by the Yuan Dynasty 800 years ago" (which somehow makes it OK? Whhaaaa?) and B) deflecting it with "but what about the USA and UK?" The current discussion isn't about what the Americans or the Brits have done, it's what China is getting up to.

[Lizard]

I don't know if China has any actual military bases in other countries, but I hitched a ride in a Chinese military vehicle, driven by a Chinese dude in fatigues in Zimbabwe. That's a long way to drive from China.

They've got a bit of a presence in Africa already (IIRC, on the pretext of their sailors getting nabbed by Somali pirates a few years ago when that was all the rage), and it appears they're either building or have built one in Djibouti.

China was everywhere in Africa when I was there (2009), most visibly in infrastructure projects. Call me cynical but I couldn't help but draw parallels between the shiny new Chinese roads and the decrepit, abandoned British (and German) railways that followed roughly the same routes and presumably will serve the same purpose of advancing the extraction of natural resources.

In Sudan, a trip I believed would take several days in a truck across the desert took only a single morning thanks to a new Chinese-built road. The ride was not as comfortable as you might expect because although the ride surface itself was smooth, it was built on a raised berm of sand and (I hope) ballast of some sort (I hate to think what will happen if it ever rains) which was strictly a point-to-point affair. There was no formed access to any of the villages the road by-passed so the bus would just plunge down the side of the berm at a less steep part, do dropping off and picking up, and then run parallel to the road until it got up enough speed to re-climb the berm.

[rowan]

I don't know if China has any actual military bases in other countries, but I hitched a ride in a Chinese military vehicle, driven by a Chinese dude in fatigues in Zimbabwe. That's a long way to drive from China.

They've got a bit of a presence in Africa already (IIRC, on the pretext of their sailors getting nabbed by Somali pirates a few years ago when that was all the rage), and it appears they're either building or have built one in Djibouti.

China was everywhere in Africa when I was there (2009), most visibly in infrastructure projects. Call me cynical but I couldn't help but draw parallels between the shiny new Chinese roads and the decrepit, abandoned British (and German) railways that followed roughly the same routes and presumably will serve the same purpose of advancing the extraction of natural resources.

In Sudan, a trip I believed would take several days in a truck across the desert took only a single morning thanks to a new Chinese-built road. The ride was not as comfortable as you might expect because although the ride surface itself was smooth, it was built on a raised berm of sand and (I hope) ballast of some sort (I hate to think what will happen if it ever rains) which was strictly a point-to-point affair. There was no formed access to any of the villages the road by-passed so the bus would just plunge down the side of the berm at a less steep part, do dropping off and picking up, and then run parallel to the road until it got up enough speed to re-climb the berm.

Nice to see the Chinese doing business with the Africans and building infrastructure. As long as they don't bomb and occupy any of those countries, murder their leaders, set up brutal dictatorships and monopolize the economy entirely for their own interests, that sounds like a pretty good set-up to me.

Obviously the Americans & Europeans are embittered by the competition, having regarded the 3rd World as their own private back yard for so long, hence the rising Sinophobia...

[morepork]

Gunz.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37036848


Way to go popo.

[cashead]

I don't know if China has any actual military bases in other countries, but I hitched a ride in a Chinese military vehicle, driven by a Chinese dude in fatigues in Zimbabwe. That's a long way to drive from China.

They've got a bit of a presence in Africa already (IIRC, on the pretext of their sailors getting nabbed by Somali pirates a few years ago when that was all the rage), and it appears they're either building or have built one in Djibouti.

China was everywhere in Africa when I was there (2009), most visibly in infrastructure projects. Call me cynical but I couldn't help but draw parallels between the shiny new Chinese roads and the decrepit, abandoned British (and German) railways that followed roughly the same routes and presumably will serve the same purpose of advancing the extraction of natural resources.

In Sudan, a trip I believed would take several days in a truck across the desert took only a single morning thanks to a new Chinese-built road. The ride was not as comfortable as you might expect because although the ride surface itself was smooth, it was built on a raised berm of sand and (I hope) ballast of some sort (I hate to think what will happen if it ever rains) which was strictly a point-to-point affair. There was no formed access to any of the villages the road by-passed so the bus would just plunge down the side of the berm at a less steep part, do dropping off and picking up, and then run parallel to the road until it got up enough speed to re-climb the berm.

I remember reading about a heavy Chinese presence in Sudan during the civil war there a few years ago, supplying arms to the Sudanese government, although a quick google indicates it was actually mostly the Russians. It'll make sense that the Chinese would've been in Sudan, since they traded for a lot of oil from the Sudanese. It looks like Chinese energy SOEs have moved over to South Sudan though, since they got most of the oil out of the split.

[Sandydragon]

China will do business on generous terms with pretty much anyone. Better yet for a lot of governments, they are less squeamish than we are.

[rowan]

Americans were very much involved behind the scenes in forcing the split. Why do you think Clooney was over there pretending to be involved in some kind of revolution. I had a couple of friends working in Sudan at the time, in fact, one in the north and one in the south. The latter had to be airlifted out of Juba by helicopter...

[rowan]

Interesting news. A truck was driven into a crowd in Germany and a Pakistani refugee was arrested. The news called it 'terrorism' and published a report that ISIS had claimed responsibility. The police realised they had made a mistake and got the wrong guy. Now they arrested two Kosovans. ISIS using Kosovans now?

In the end it was a Tunisian who had been living in Milan. Killed in a shoot-out.