Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing cannot accept any country acting as the “world’s judge” after the United States captured Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro.

The world’s second-largest economy has provided Venezuela with an economic lifeline since the U.S. and its allies ramped up sanctions in 2017, purchasing roughly $1.6 billion worth of goods in 2024, the most recent full-year data available.

Almost half of China’s purchases were crude oil, customs data shows, while its state-owned oil giants had invested around $4.6 billion in Venezuela by 2018, according to data from the American Enterprise Institute think tank, which tracks Chinese overseas corporate investment.

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    6 hours ago

    Yet this is exactly the kind of action they fully supproted when Russia attempted the exactly same thing in 2022. And then several times since. Plus a few other atrocities.

    • tb_@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Since Taiwan is “already part” of China, that would just be internal affairs too.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    7 hours ago

    MAGAs keep saying that this isn’t about the oil because the oils fields are inoperative, and it will be at least a decade, and billions of dollars before they are getting any oil out of the ground.

    Meanwhile, we’ve been hijacking giants tankers full of oil, and China, and other countries, have been buying billions of dollars worth every year.

    It seems like there is plenty of oil coming out of Venezuela, and always has been. This is all about oil, and that’s all there is to it. They can deny it, but they are proven virtuoso liars, and we don’t have to believe them.

  • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    13 hours ago

    Aren’t they only saying that so they can annex Taiwan without interference?

    • foggianism@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 hours ago

      so what if they do at this point? who’s to say they are the bad guys if they do it?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 hours ago

        Taiwan is America’s property in the same way that Venezuela is America’s property and Greenland is America’s property and Nigeria is America’s property and everything is America’s property.

  • minorkeys@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    17 hours ago

    Unless it’s China whose the judge, of course. They seem to find no issue judging the Uygurs as needing to die and Taiwan as their property, or the the South China Sea as their waters, or all the fish in the world as theirs to make extinct.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      8 hours ago

      They seem to find no issue judging the Uygurs as needing to die

      Are they killing Uyghurs by the millions or teaching them Mandarin?

      So much of the hysteria around China seems to stem from domestic campaigns of infrastructure development. The Three Gourges Dam, the rapid expansion of urban infrastructure, development of schools and hospitals in the historically rural corners of the country, expansion of universities, trade with East Africa, the BRI - all described as brutal forms of colonial oppression by a savage and sadistic Far-Left Totalitarian Communist government.

      Nobody described Bolsonaro’s Brazil in these terms, as his administration clear cut the Amazon and rapidly displaced tens of thousands of migrants. Nobody described The Phillipines or Indonesia this way, even as Red Tagging was used as an excuse for vigilante executions and toxic dumping sent cancer rates stratospheric. Hell, its hard enough to get Israel described in these terms in any major western publication of record, and they’re outright shooting children in the head before labeling them “Hamas Terrorists”.

      Why are liberals so eager to re-characterize literacy programs as a form of holocaust? Why do they seem so gleeful at the prospect of a China-Taiwan hot war? Why do we have a President threatening to invade Venezuela, Nigeria, and Greenland all at once, while his biggest “critics” complain that he’s not bellicose enough?

      Fucking wild times.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    27
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    20 hours ago

    This also gives justification to North Korea. They’ve been arguing for ages that they should be allowed nuclear weapons because otherwise the US would come in and force a regime change, and now Trumpsky has just handed them the evidence.

    • Aljernon@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      19 hours ago

      All that NK artillery was the real deterrent. Before NK developed Nukes, after the cold war the US could have relatively easily crushed them except for the incredible amount of collateral damage they could have done to SK. However, in the post Ukraine/Trump presidency age, securing a stock of nukes or joining a defense coalition that includes at least one member with nukes seems like the wise decision. Heart breaking really.

        • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          18 hours ago

          Well… yeah, we could have.

          If war was literally as simple as “kill the other person and damn the consequences” the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war. The political consequences for doing so were the limiting factor - an extreme example, but we could have just nuked north vietnam to glass and been done with it (and obviously that wasn’t a realistic option (despite the number of times some psycho general or the other tried to advocate for it)).

          • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            17 hours ago

            If war was literally as simple as “kill the other person and damn the consequences” the US could have casually wiped out the viet cong at pretty much any point during the war.

            They tried that towards the end, sending B-52s to carpet bomb Hanoi. Dozens of planes were shot down, hundreds survived, thousands of civilians were killed. If the US continued, they would have managed to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, but eventually they’d run out of planes before the Vietnamese ran out of people or willingness to defend themselves.

            • Zexks@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              13 hours ago

              You all act like we didnt already have dozens of nukes at that ppint and couldnt straight up glass the entire country. It wasnt capability that stopped the US is was political willpower or lack there of.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              16 hours ago

              They escalated, yes - absolutely not denying that. But the point was that they didn’t just nuke the city. Winning was important, but there was a point that the consequences of winning were deemed to outweigh the victory itself.

          • bthest@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            17 hours ago

            we coulda won but we just didn’t feel like it.

            Not a very convincing argument.

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              16 hours ago

              That’s an oversimplification to the point that it really doesn’t represent my argument at all, though. But to treat with what you said, I’m not sure how

              The US didn’t “feel” like winning the war was so important it justified nuking north vietnam

              is a bad representation of the situation? The US didn’t drop sarin on the ho chi minh trail, nor did they nuke Hanoi, mobilize full wartime production, draft the “desirables” etc. Politics are a massive part of any war. “An army marches on it’s stomach” isn’t simply a literal adage about the importance of supplies.

        • Aljernon@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          18 hours ago

          The key difference, for those unfamiliar with Asia or history, is that South Korea is a cohesive modern nation with a competent military and a strong sense of national identity that feel genuine friendship with the US (for now at least). All things that weren’t true about South Vietnam.

          • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            16 hours ago

            South Korea was essentially invented by the US in 1947, it took trillions in investment, and decades of propaganda+imprisoning/killing everyone left of Sygmon Rhee to create the nation of South Korea…

            • Warl0k3@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              16 hours ago

              I think you’re giving the US way too much credit here. They helped south korea establish itself with a massive investment, but they didn’t “invent” the country, and its pretty insulting to south koreans that you’re so willing to take away their agency in the matter.

                • thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  12 hours ago

                  if i remember correctly, the north koreans also had a role to play in drawing that map, seeing as how the north korean army was pushed all the way north to china’s border.

  • Aljernon@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    19 hours ago

    They’re not wrong but also the last thing those assholes want is anyone judging their shitty behavior. Ulterior Motives and all.

  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    64
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day ago

    For anyone that thinks otherwise I guarantee this opens the door for China to begin their assault on Taiwan.

    • I’m not so sure it does. China is openly arguing against Trumps logic here, and the US just did demonstrate their military is still highly effective. The US seventh fleet hasn’t moved away from Taiwan, and Trump is clearly signalling he intends to keep China down.

      I’d argue Xi is not happy Trump decided to actually do something like this, because it increased the risk of his plans with Taiwan as well now that the US is openly hostile and MAGA cheers it on.

      China needed him to keep up the whole peace pretense and for MAGA to stay on board with that. Now that that’s gone, Trump has cleared the way for more military intervention.

      • prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        From China’s perspective (and in theory, Taiwan’s perspective), invading Taiwan isn’t the same, because they both officially recognize One China, they just disagree about who’s in charge.

        It would more akin to USA invading Puerto Rico, if the governor of PR asserted that they were in fact the proper leaders of the USA.

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        13 hours ago

        and the US just did demonstrate their military is still highly effective

        hmmmm sucker punching Venezuela here is not the flex you seem to think it is

        the USA loves to bat weaker military powers around but they have been shown to be crushed by peasants in the long run…

        • In a matter of hours the US kidnapped the president of Venezuela, from his house on an army base, taking zero casualties. I don’t think there’s many militaries around that can beat that. It’s not the same as capturing Putin or Xi, sure, but it’s no trifle either.

            • 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠@programming.dev
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 hours ago

              How many other heads of state do you remember being kidnapped from their palace, like from anywhere?

              Of course Venezuela is no China or Russia and doesn’t compare to the US military, but they did have fairly modern Russian-made AA installations, all of which were successfully disabled or destroyed. And again: zero casualties.

              You expect the operation would be successful, sure. But not as perfectly executed as it was.

              • Jhex@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                60 minutes ago

                How many other heads of state do you remember being kidnapped from their palace, like from anywhere?

                how many have been tried?

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        20 hours ago

        MAGA is actually currently having a bit of a crisis of confidence. One of the promises Trump made was to stop the empire building and international interference. Now he’s going around causing an international incident every 45 minutes.

        He has gone from saying that it was a single strike, to threatening more strikes against Venezuela, to threatening yet other countries in the last 24 hours.

        • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 hours ago

          In the USA, this is known as the “old switcheroo”.

          Our politicians are infamous for doing the exact opposite of their platform.

          For example, Reagan ran on sealing the borders and isolationism, only to declare amnesty for border hoppers and revel in international intervention.

          Biden ran on increasing the minimum wage and other working class American concerns. Did he do this? No.

          Our major parties aren’t actually concerned with their platforms, that’s performative.

        • Aljernon@lemmy.today
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          18 hours ago

          The thing about bootlickers is that they love licking boot. As long as we’re winning and not losing, they’ll obediently fall in line. If things turn to shit, like it did in Iraq & Afghanistan, they’ll pretend they were always against it.

        • icelimit@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          edit-2
          19 hours ago

          Maga gets hard from a show of strength, regardless of what form that takes. Even if it means cannibalising some of their own.

        • A random Xitter account crying foul isn’t a sign of widespread crisis of confidence. Only 6% of Republicans don’t approve of the Maduro kidnapping. His approval rating went up a bit since the kidnapping (38% -> 42%).

          His base, by and large, support the warmongering.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      China claims Taiwan is theirs. Invading their own country to free it doesn’t really need any extra motive (even if there is) like what Trump needed, and is not playing world police.

    • Knightfox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      100% agree, also China’s outrage is in name only. They provided 1.6 Billion in relief in the form of buying oil lol.

    • bastion@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      this is how things work, and some people seem incapable of understanding that.

      You exercise a given power, and it gives others justification to use power in the same way. Laws be damned, the motivation is there.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      1 day ago

      China is an authoritarian dictatorship that tramples human rights and treats its citizens like resources and speed-bumps and treats “free speech” as the joke it actually is.

      All that said, they are pulling ahead on the world stage by miles. We don’t see it in the US because again… freedom of speech isn’t real, media is filtered, but if you travel you see whole other angles on the entire planet and just how much we don’t get shown.

      For example, you rarely see news about it, but China has launched 3 space stations in the time it took us to make just the documentaries about the ISS and how huuuuge of an accomplishment it was for the world. They are going to be launching probes and setting up smart, realistic goals for exploring the solar system. That’s just not the kind high-tech, ambitious, modern project that we associate with our stereotypical imagery of China that we get fed here, but if you actually walk around in any of their new cities you will feel a distinct, sinking sensation that we’ve already lost.

      • Jhex@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        13 hours ago

        China is an authoritarian dictatorship that tramples human rights and treats its citizens like resources and speed-bumps and treats “free speech” as the joke it actually is.

        if you switched “China” to “The USA” in this sentence, I would have to find details to see if the scale is different but both do exactly the same

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 hours ago

          Yep. There is no government that actually serves the people, governments serve self-preservation and they tend to do heinous shit to succeed at that. We are not an evolved species but really only because we lack the will to be better broadly.

          As individuals we each have vast capacity for learning, caring and understanding the world around us. As a generalized population we are a liquid that flows to the lowest point and erodes everything it touches.

          • Jhex@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            9 hours ago

            I agree… but my point here is that it does not matter it was China who said “x”, in this instance “x” is right and people are dismissing it because “cHiNA” but the reality is that every country, powerful enough, acts pretty much the same so I am attempting to split the source from the message

      • Aljernon@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        18 hours ago

        Americans still associate China with shit quality merchandise while glossing over that that merchandise is made shit quality because American Importers selected that level of quality and completely ignoring that they make I Phones and other High quality tech.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          12 hours ago

          This is absolutely right and a good point that I think a lot of people really don’t get. China isn’t filled with the cheap shit we get from China, they have a thriving middle-class, they have luxury goods the likes of which westerners haven’t dreamed of. They have quality standards for goods and services probably higher than most places.

          It’s just that since we get their cheap dollar-store merch and we read stories about traditional Chinese medicine, we get the picture here that they’re still largely a backwards, “3rd-world” nation of rice farmers and peasants. It would be like judging the entire US on a sampling of people from the mountains of Appalachia.

          Related, but I also find it hilarious when people reference China as “communist” in any capacity.

      • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        Three what now? Do you mean three modules for one station? Or three consecutive stations, one testing technology for the next? E.g. a short time station, e.g. a crew vehicle? I am only aware of one station, Tiangong. Do I have to do another web search? :(

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          The current monster they have completed in 2022, Tiangong, was the third in a series of stations, the previous Tiangong-1 and Tiangong-2 stations were mostly meant to test technique and technology but were remarkable achievements in their own right. They currently have the largest and most active space program in the world. I didn’t even touch on their lunar program, their heavy satellite capability and their list of recent and upcoming solar-system probes.

          • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            11 hours ago
            1. I don’t think monster is an appropriate word for a space station.
            2. so yeah, Tiangong-1 & -2 were single vehicle modules for technology evaluation. Similar to Skylab in concept (single launch, test docking technologies & crewed missions)
            3. as impressive as the Chinese space program is, the ISS is substantially bigger. Sadly, the world has not gotten their shit together in time for a follow-up station, and Gateway is pretty much dead-at-conception.
            • ameancow@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 hours ago

              Oh the ISS is definitely bigger than anything ever sent to space, as I would expect from an international project that was built by a coalition of countries in better days, but it doesn’t really compare to China’s long-term goals and plans that have been on schedule. China is absolutely dominating space right now and will be into the future unless the US just suddenly gets it shit together and elects people who care about science and exploration, and even then it will take many years or decades now to undo the damage that trumpism has done to the US’s global leadership in space science.

              The ISS is going to be deorbited in 2031, and I am not expecting a bigger, newer project to replace it. At this point I am not expecting to have access to health care broadly in 2031 in the US.

              • raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                11 hours ago

                No argument there. China definitely has the better and more advanced space program. The ISS might get extended again if it doesn’t break and once people realize there is nothing comparable ready by 2030/31, but yes, eventually, there will be no international nor western space station in orbit for the foreseeable future.

            • INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              18 hours ago

              He may have meant one space station and some extra moon missions or something? They have been popping off a fair bit.

              Honestly, I don’t care what country dominates and wins the space race, i will just be impressed that we don’t kill each other trying.

      • BoJackHorseman@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        1 day ago

        Is bombing other countries, killing civilians and installing puppet leaders not a violation of human rights?

        • rustyfish@piefed.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          7 hours ago

          Alright. The US acted like crap. Therefore nobody is allowed to criticise China.

          Because of the US, we are not allowed to speak about the Uyghur KZs in China.

          Because of the US, we are not allowed to criticise China for unlawfully occupying Tibet.

          Because of the US, we are not allowed to criticise China for not respecting Taiwans sovereignty.

          Do you understand how hollow you sound?

            • T00l_shed@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              28
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 day ago

              Kay, I’m not chinese or american, so, both the us and china do horrendous things. It’s not a shittiness competition

                • OldChicoAle@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  I think you’re missing a lot of US History in your knowledge base. The US have committed atrocities for centuries. Are you forgetting the genocide of native americans? Slavery? All the meddling in Latin America and southeast Asia? This is just some of the bigger examples.

      • Darkness343@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 day ago

        So what if they do a little authoritarianism? They are attempting to make goddamn fusions reactors, for fucks sake

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          15
          ·
          edit-2
          1 day ago

          It’s important to point out balancing factors when discussing the accomplishments of any entity or state.

          China is doing amazing things and will likely dominate the coming century, but that doesn’t mean we should look at them like heroes or champions, and we need to hold our leaders accountable for wrongs.

          It’s possible they will get better as they take on more of a global role in the absence of the US hegemony that will likely start to crumble over the next several decades. I hope they give their people more rights and become leaders of world stability, but part of why they’re escaping the destabilizing forces that are crushing democratic countries is precisely because they have such an oppressive stranglehold on their own culture. It’s a complex situation.

        • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          24 hours ago

          Invasion of Korea lmao. The north had democratic elections, the south had a sham election that resulted in an administration which put people who’d colluded with the japanese back into power, and the US was literally murdering anyone left of Syngman Rhee as a prelude to taking the rest of the peninsula.

          Whatever you think about Korea now, China was absolutely fighting for the liberation of its people.

          The sino-vietnamese war was 25 years later, and a much more legitimate criticism of China’s foreign policy.

            • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              16 hours ago

              I assume you mean when Saddam, with the US’s weapons and blessing, invaded Kuwait, then was shocked the US betrayed their old friend?

              If so, I have absolutely no idea how its relevant to China.

  • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    96
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    Worse, a “world judge” that doesn’t accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

    “We make the rules, but rules don’t apply to us.”

    • Zink@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      edit-2
      24 hours ago

      That sounds an awful lot like Wilhoit’s law, which I find myself referring to quite often lately.

      Wilhoit’s law:

      Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

      edit: So the US is the rich conservative of the world stage. Super. I love seeing the news every day and wondering if any more of these maga morons are going to finally have their “are we the baddies?” moment. /s

    • MBech@feddit.dk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      ·
      1 day ago

      Even going so far as planning in details how to invade the International Criminal Court, if it ever dared to prosecute one of their soldiers for, say, murdering children in the streets.

  • MithranArkanere@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    34
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 day ago

    It would appear that the US got tired of all the jokes comparing them to the movie Idiocracy, so they decided to make themselves into Team America: World Police instead.

  • Inucune@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    1 day ago

    We agree, so let’s discuss the Chinese police stations in countries that are clearly not China.

      • Natanael@infosec.pub
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        18
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        At least the host country agreed to those

        There’s real things to criticize, why pick something stupid?

        • shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          12 hours ago

          Hard power is often leveraged by state actors to coerce agreement / consent. It doesn’t necessarily invalidate consent but it certainly obscures it.

          After WW2 Japan and Germany, for example, were not in a position to say no to US bases. I wouldn’t consider that legitimate consent.

          • FiniteBanjo@feddit.online
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            1 day ago

            You can’t tolerate the intolerant, Japan lost WWII and had to be demilitarized. It’s one thing to advocate for Remilitarize Japan, it’s another thing entirely to ask their proxy military to leave them defenceless.

  • wheezy@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    33
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 day ago

    China is the world’s largest economy by every meaningful metric. No serious economist uses GDP as a metric for actual economic production. Can we please at least use GDP (PPP)?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)

    It’s still not a good metric but at least it actually allows a means to compare countries to one another more accurately.

    The US economy is 10 major tech corporations doing essentially this with AI right now.

    • booly@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      No serious economist uses GDP as a metric for actual economic production. Can we please at least use GDP (PPP)?

      In terms of flexing on foreign countries on the international stage, though, raw GDP (or at least imports and exports) is pretty important.

      The PPP calculation comparing China to the United States may tell us a lot about how much a resident of either country can expect to experience using the local currency domestically, but if we’re talking about influence over a third country, in that third country’s local currency, then I think each respective PPP back home doesn’t matter as much.

      • wheezy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        If we’re not comparing the ability of a citizen to buy things with the fruit of their labor. What are we comparing?

        I get what you’re saying. But it comes down to a fundamental problem with liberal (using the classical sense of the word) economist and what they are “flexing” about.

        The “economy” to the average voter is how much the groceries and rent are.

        Not even mentioning the “eating shit” problem of GDP. GDP PPP is far more meaningful to quality of life. Though still flawed. The normal person isn’t trying to understand the power of a currency on the world stage. They are using it to buy eggs.

        • booly@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          If we’re not comparing the ability of a citizen to buy things with the fruit of their labor. What are we comparing?

          In this particular case? I think we’re comparing Chinese and American ability to project economic influence (from trade or aid, to outright bribes or coercion or boycotts or sanctions or everything in between) over Venezuela.

          The normal person

          But the normal person has nothing to do with governments dealing with other governments on the global stage. And that’s what this story is about, Venezuela being caught between two competing visions of their future in the international order.

          If a country wants to build an airport in their capital city using the resources of foreign governments seeking to influence them, the question isn’t about how many eggs the citizens of those countries can buy in their home turf, but about how much concrete and steel and heavy machinery those other countries can provide in the country considering offers.

          • wheezy@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            18 hours ago

            Do you think America competes at all in its ability to produce heavy machinery, concrete, and steel when compared to China?

            We are far beyond the GDP vs. GDP(PPP) that started this. But, you brought it up. The US’s main problem is it’s lack of industrial production. It’s an almost entirely finance based economy. Which is something that causes its GDP to be heavily inflated. The AI companies trading the same billions in a circle with no actual material production happening in the country right now. The US economy is built on financial speculation. China’s is built on industrial production. Something GDP doesn’t account for at all.

            That was my entire frustration with using GDP as a metric in the first place. I said “at least use GDP(PPP)” because at least it takes into account the populations purchasing power of goods.

            On the world stage, as an economic power, the US is losing to China. It’s why it’s using its military to invade South American countries that trade with China. It has no real way to compete. So it’s falling back on it’s methods of imperialism.

            • booly@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 hours ago

              We are far beyond the GDP vs. GDP(PPP) that started this.

              No, you started talking about PPP in response to a news story that described the United States and China competing over influence over the Venezuelan economy: Chinese aid and investment in response to United States sanctions. Those are essentially going to be dollar denominated, and PPP doesn’t matter. I’ve been saying from the beginning that you were wrong to bring PPP into the discussion, because this discussion, in this thread, isn’t about domestic consumption in either China or the U.S.

              The US’s main problem is it’s lack of industrial production.

              Again, when talking about the effects of sanctions and foreign aid and investment, we should be talking about transactions that occur in the currency at issue. If China wants to provide aid to Venezuela in RMB, Venezuela will either need to spend that on Chinese producers or exchange for another currency to spend elsewhere (including Venezuelan Bolivars being spent domestically). If there’s going to be a currency exchange, then PPP of the aid providing nation doesn’t matter. A million USD from China is worth the exact same amount as a million USD from the U.S.

              On the world stage, as an economic power, the US is losing to China.

              I think if we’re talking about on the world stage, as an economic power, the interconnected West is best understood as a power bloc. U.S. inconsistency and unpredictability on things like Russian sanctions actually show the limits of U.S. unilateral power while still showing the power of the broader Western order. Yes, China and Russia want to provide the world with an alternative multipolar order, and fragmentation of the Western powers may open up opportunities for that vision, but that competition is playing out along alliances, not isolated nations. In any event, PPP doesn’t have anything to do with that particular competition.

              • wheezy@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                38 minutes ago

                We’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I’m not going to bang my head against the wall trying to explain it to you. But I’ll give it one more shot.

                The fact that you see PPP as only relevant in a bubble inside the country is just idiotic. China PRODUCES things. Literally most of its aid and initiatives are in the form of resources and infrastructure projects. There is no USD involved. That’s literally the entire Belt and Road project.

                I’m sorry. But it seems like you’re trying to project what you know about US trade and neoliberal economic policies onto China. You clearly know enough about US trade and how it uses the dollar for dominance on world markets. But China doesn’t have to play that game anymore. That’s literally the shift in global economic trade that has happened. The world is not being held hostage by US dollar dominance anymore. They have an alternative in China.

                And PPP is a much better means of showing why this is. It’s BECAUSE China actually makes shit. It’s not just a finance and consumption economy. It makes stuff more affordable for its population AND it’s able to use this same massive industrial power to work on industrial projects with other countries.

                You are explaining a world that existed 20-30 years ago.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      Okay but what metric should we use for the average American median voter who just wants to see China enter a wrestling ring with pyrotechnics and then rock and roll music plays and we see the US hit them with a steel chair.

      Even that might be too nuanced and complex for the average American voter.

    • Pungent Llama@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      19 hours ago

      China has 4x the population of the US. It should have 4x the GDP of the US to be truly equivalent.

      • wheezy@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        18 hours ago

        You might want to let the people that studied econ beyond a lemonade stand just talk next time. You don’t need to type out every thought in your head.

        You just gave the ultimate dumb guy response. Congratulations.

        We’re discussing Calculus and you just responded with “yeah, well 2 + 2 = 4. I don’t know why those letters are in your math with that weird squiggly line at the start.”.

        You clearly have no idea what we’re even discussing in this thread.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 day ago

      Naw, OpenAi pays oracle to agree to eat the crap Oracle pays nvidia to agree to eat the crap Nvidia pays OpenAi to agree to eat the crap

      The consumers eat the crap as they reduce the memory and video cards available to the public.

    • BoJackHorseman@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      27
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      China is nowhere near a terrorist as America.

      Every regime change America has done in another country and installed a puppet, their economic situation never improved under the puppet leader.

        • BoJackHorseman@piefed.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          14
          ·
          1 day ago

          You’re gonna compare one bad thing done by China to hundreds done by America and claim both are equally bad lmao

                • selokichtli@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  13 hours ago

                  “Little bit worse”, “countless”, “big beautiful bill”, are you an American? If so, it really shows the USA barely maintains a Department of Education. If not, jeez, MAGA hats are everywhere.

          • mriormro@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            17
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            1 day ago

            How exactly am I a CIA shill? This is the kind of shit that makes people not take you seriously at all.

            “Everyone must be a shill because they disagree with me!!”

            I’m equally critical of both the US hegemony as well as that of China’s.

              • mriormro@lemmy.zip
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                20
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                1 day ago

                Take a moment to understand what you’re arguing here. China not bombing an equal number of countries (according to you) as the US does not absolve the PRC of their sins simply because you are comparing them to another imperial power. This is, like, textbook false equivalence.

                You still haven’t answered exactly how I’m a CIA shill, btw.

                • BoJackHorseman@piefed.social
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  4
                  arrow-down
                  9
                  ·
                  1 day ago

                  China and America are the two biggest economies and armies of the world. It’s a fair comparison. Soon the world will have to choose between America and China.

                  It’s not “according to me”. History is proof of America’s terrorism. China hasn’t bombed a single country in over a century.