OK, ok, no doubt "statist propaganda, what the eff are you posting" responses will follow, but for just a moment: - The Chinese approach to the state "handling" of dissidents <cough> Tiananmen Square <cough/> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests is a little more ... blunt ... than the Western approach - The Chinese are executing capatilism to a notably greater degree than the West, which may imply certain things about them, e.g. in relation to: - hive mind / locust mentality - regard for the individual - Thick Face, Black Heart (book written by a Chinese lady for our benefit) - "the motherland" nationalism, at all costs - a unity (of a sort) within the Chinese people which is as impressive as the fanaticism of Islamic extremists willing to blow themselves up for "Allah" - notwithstanding many things "of the West", including but not limited to the misdeeds, empire building, CIA assassination program, CIA orphanages and blackmailing program, CIA/NSA ubiquitous monitoring of the world, etc, were one to choose between the Chinese system where social credit scores and ubiquitous facial scanning now block people in China from buying train tickets, and the present corruption of the West, but our ability still (for the time being) to say the things we say here on the cypherpunks mailing list, and to discuss the things we discuss I for one would not choose the Chinese regime. What strikes my heart most heavily in all this is the following: Our abandonment (by deep state corruption and overwhelming evil compulsion) of relationship and/ or partnership with Russia - not the Marxist Communism regime of the USSR of old, but of present day Russia, with whose people we culturally share so much, and who, on the whole, are far more compelling in their principles and inspiration than we in the West have descended (basically in aggregate into nihilistic dullards). The Fed. At heart, the corruption of the West can be traced, consistently, to money, and in particular unethical and unconstitutional debt based money/ fiat/ usury system, under which we serf, and which has been used to bully and dominate most of the rest of the world. When the Fed says "eviscerate Russia, do anything but agree to be fair to Russia and other nations in the world", the USA congress jumps like a flea bitten hungry mongrel dog being chucked half a sausage, to Israel's, sorry I means the Fed's / AIPAC's bidding. So bound into empire and the enternal spiral debt trap heaved upon her, that the USA empire demonstrated no restraint in decency or respect for Russia and her people (and dozens of other countries and peoples). We must unwind the government blackmail machine, for any hope of sanity. In the mean time, the USA is finally beginning to demonstrate some self awareness in relation to "well now, your proposals need to have at least -some- benefit to those who participate", and is belatedly coming to the "shared infrastructure and shared future intentions" party: US Challenges China's Belt And Road With New Global Infrastructure Scheme https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-challenges-chinas-belt-and-road-ne... The Trump administration has spent the last several years, bashing China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and calling it a 'debt trap' and urging countries around the world to resist allowing China to build infrastructure projects in their respected countries. The motive behind US officials attempting to discredit the BRI is because of Washington's new plan to launch a similar infrastructure scheme. ... The US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) have unveiled on Monday the American-led Blue Dot Network, a global "sustainable infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world," read an OPIC press release. ... Better late to the party than never, and it may well be that it was the Fed all along which forbade any genuine progress on actually building any long lasting vision for the West, up until now. Some of us, do not want Chinese overlords... and to this end, Putin's "multi polar" world looks much saner and balanced, than a Chinese world empire. Remember, Federal Reserve Bank policies caused a massive % of Western manufacturing and industrial capacity to be exported lock stock and barrel to China over the last few decades, and in this way, massive wealth (at least, in the form of computer account fiat balances) and trade imbalances were created, in the favour of China. In the big picture of Empires and fiat "reserve currency status" usury regimes, China was quite clearly being prepped to be the next Empire kid on the block, with de Rothschilds' sons overseeing it all. Unfortunately for de Rothschilds, and for the West, the Chinese were not beholden to "no one" - they have their own wise counsel behind the scenes, and they've played a very long and deceptive game in the Empire stakes. Although the Fed - played an all or nothing gambit (which admittedly has been entirely successful for a few millennia) - and failed to claim the last few holdout countries into the Federal Reserve system (Iran for one, who'd a thought), - and also Putin put his foot down and held the line against the disgraceful enslavement of the Russian people post-USSR collapse by "the Harvard boys" and their "economic shock therapy" it's not too late for the West to salvage a semblance of economic and international dignity. Trump may have made a bunch of mistakes, and/or may simply have had his hands consistently tied by AIPAC and the Fed, but at least he stands up for those who still believe that It's OK to be White!