HN Books @HNBooksMonth

>"Focusing only on the negatives of a foreign country is not unless the goal is to agitate the populace for conflict and war."

Western news media news is designed for western audience consumption. Pointing out the suffering of people in other countries is something that people with empathy want to know about. For example, when Western media points out the suffering of Palestinians, we hear that this is because of anti-Israel bias. The reality is, most people aren't opposed to Israel, they're concerned with the suffering imposed by the occupation, and the ancillary effects on their own national interest due to regional instability. The goal of the media isn't conflict and war, it's awareness and political change. If there's a genocide happening, I want to know about it. If the US backed Saudi proxy war in Yemen is destroying huge number of lives because of American made weapons or policy, I want to know about it, and if a large US trading partner is locking people in Xinjiang and even manufacturing with slave labor, I'd rather buy my products somewhere else.

>"Take your imagined trilateral water war as an example, have you looked into how minor the supply is to India?".

Of course, have you? There are 130 million people who live in the Brahmaputra basin. And 1 billion downstream of the Hindu Kush. You don't think India is concerned about the dams going up in Kashmir and the Tibetan Plateau? "damming for electricity has little effect on total volume of flow" you're talking past damns, the concern is over future mega dams.

>"Otoh, when US dammed the Colorado the water was diverted for agriculture and urban consumption. The river basically dried up before reaching Mexico."

Yeah, and that was bad for both the environment, and for Mexico, which is exactly why people are concerned about China's activity, not just for geo-political reasons and the 1+ billion people dependent on the Tibetan plateau water supply, but the environmental damage that could result as well. Your own example shows exactly why those dependent on Tibetan and Hindu Kush supplies should be concerned about dam building, in which they have little say over.

By all means, use past US transgressions as a road map for why we should be concerned. Take Belt and Road Initiative. Sucker someone into taking a large loan, make them use the loaned money to buy from your own country's companies, and then when the debtor can't pay, seize concessions. The US played this out extremely well all over the world (see _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_ https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins...), and it's being repeated: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lank...

It's because of how awful the US's policy was in doing the same thing in South America and Africa that I'm concerned now about what I see happening now, essentially neo-colonialism.

However, the real issue I sense, is that a lot of 五毛 and 玻璃心 don't want to hear any criticism, even if it's legitimate, because of elevated nationalism dialed up by Xi over the years. And it is this rising nationalism, in the US with Trump, in Europe (e.g. in Hungary), and in China that we should be worried about. We've managed to temporarily put down Trumpism here, but Xi made himself President for life, and authoritarianism combined with rising nationalism and economic power is not a good recipe, if the 20th century taught us anything.

⬐ fspeech

The point I was responding to was whether the western audience is well served if the media only focus on the negative side of the China story. It is not the same as the local paper's focus on crimes and tragedies. My main concern is that my boys don't get conscripted into serving in a future war promoted by people who don't paint a realistic picture of the world, on both what China is and on how much power the West (or anyone else) has over China.

P.S. As for the Brahmaputra river, according to Indian officials: "Out of five major tributaries of Brahmaputra, only three come from China, rest are from Arunachal Pradesh. Of the total water entering (Brahmaputra), only 7% is contributed by precipitation in China." https://www.livemint.com/Politics/jksr4ft6Jn5wjvJAEGwD5L/Ind...

⬐ cromwellian

I don't think there will be a war with China, I don't want a war with China, and a war with China would be disasterous, even if it didn't involve nuclear weapons, it would disrupt the global supply chain. In fact, leaving aside China, I don't want the US involved in any wars, I don't want them selling arms, whether large or small, to countries, I don't want them running proxy wars.

I've lived in China, much of what the CCP is doing infrastructure wise is admirable. They've built 10s of thousands of miles of highways, high speed rail, waterways, electric grid, into historically underserved areas. And they have understandable paranoia having observed the breakup of the USSR, as well as bloody historical Chinese rebellions, like the Taiping rebellion, about what could happen if there is a revolution against the ruling party. This paranoia has perhaps fueled an overreaction, that is driving historical levels of brainwashing nationalism, down to the elementary school level, and insane levels of surveillance, etc. After 9/11, the US government utilized fear from terrorism to launch the Patriot Act, the Global War On Terror, invasion of Iraq, and NSA surveillance programs. Xi similarly latched on a few Uyghur terrorist incidents as an excuse to do, IMHO, massive violations of human rights.

I don't think it's a stable situation. Sooner or later something will give, either nationalism will spill over into a conflict because eventually the nationalists need to start an invasion against someone (probably Taiwan) to regain lost honor or satisfy a past humiliation, or if there is ever a financial implosion, they'll be great internal unrest, and without the "relief valve" of even pseudo-democracy, you'll great more and more tightening by the government, until a fed up population who is facing a declining economy for the first time, destabilizes the government.

This is not really about what Wolf Blitzer is saying on CNN, it's more or less about personal observations I see around rising fascism and nationalism around the world that has be deeply worried about this century, and that's without considering the Thucydides’s Trap, and that 12 of the last 16 confrontations between a superpower and a rising superpower have resulted in war.

⬐ woshicoolbe

It looks like you are very well informed and very eloquent. Do you have any plan or actions to help to solve the problem of nationalism and oppression towards Uyghurs?

⬐ cromwellian

That's another common logical fallacy in debates in trying to shut people up. "Stop talking, if you really care about it, go do something." Well, for one, the reason why speech is important and criticism is important, is that it raises awareness. You can't get tell a guy to go toss starfishes back into the sea if the problem is industrial boats polluting the sea, you've got to hopefully get enough people from the bottom up aware of the issue to create the beginnings of a political movement, through boycotts or elections. I think it's perfectly fine for people to talk about, complain about, things in public forums, or at the dinner table. It's step 1 to change.

I can't solve the problems of the Uyghurs anymore than I can solve climate change. But do you think people should have sat quietly by in 1930s while Germany murdered Jews just because they couldn't do anything directly about it? I could choose not to buy Chinese goods the same as I could choose to recycle, but we all know it doesn't do anything. So the real change must occur at higher levels, that is, Western governments and corporations need to stop appeasing China for market access, compromising their art, their IP, just to please the CCP, only to be betrayed later, while at the same time, supporting violations of human rights. Condition your contracts, your trade deals, on transparency, protection for the environment, humane treatment, etc.

Right now Xi Jinping is thinking China can eventually survive on their domestic market only. Welp, that'll be a good experiment to try that Western governments can help with, and if the result is a severe economic recession in China, it may eventually lead to a new Chinese President as other CCP factions takeover, who takes the country in a different direction.

⬐ woshicoolbe

I did't want you to stop talking, I wanted to hear your ideas. And thanks for your ideas, and I hope the western leaders could hear them as well.

You might like this one, not sure how much of it is true and how much is made up

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins...

⬐ merrua

I found that a fun read. No idea how much of it is real.

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins...

Since we are at it, I suggest reading John Perkins's "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man":

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins...

Also, any book on past and current colonialism (say, current actions of the US military in Africa).

How do you like your illegitimately rich country?

⬐ None

None

Can you give some examples of corruption that actually hindered you? I consider corruption to be a minor-to-non-existent problem for areas like IT/tech here.

The main problem to me is the lack of entrepreneurship and the fact that there are lots of "stealth-startups" in Romania that will probably not even be incorporated in Romania ever, so they'll never show up on the radar as "Romanian startups", they will simply "pack up the whole team and move" abroad after the first big foreign investor spots them and invests/acquires with a "relocation requirement".

There are also entrepreneurs that run their companies disguised as outsourcing-shops while the real startup is actually the outsourcing-shop's client registered somewhere like USA-Delaware/Hongkong/whatever because it leads to better perspective from the customers. Of course, this is also a short term arrangement before the team of the company is swallowed by a bigger fish.

There is a lot going on, but int this part of the world very few of what's happening actually shows up on the radar as what it is.

Also... coming back to corruption, imho the greatest problem is lack of entrepreneurial spirit because the society and education actively discourages smart people from becoming entrepreneurs... so they end up engineers, doctors etc. ...or emigrate. Corruption really makes little difference because real innovation doesn't happen while working on projects for the state anyway. I think that a certain level of corruption can even help economic growth if used selectively - ie a bribe that sabotages a bigger international corporation from getting a contract for a state-financed development project in favor of a local startup (where, for example, one of the investors happens to be a local senator or whatever... probably not the best example but to get the point across) can actually result in more money funneling back into the local economy and fueling its growth... Everything can be a double edged sword in the bigger economic game.

The American obsession with corruption in other countries is imho more out of fear of being out-maneuvered by foreign local businessmen in the international economic game when it comes to uderhanded tactics :) (see http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/... for context)

This is a great project, the only thing that concerns me about it is the very large loan from the IMF denominated in USD they took out in order to build it. Could well have been the work of EHMs

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/...

⬐ xadhominemx

Ya, I don't think "EHM" is a real acronym that people actually use

⬐ dools

It's used in the book I linked to above (and stands for "economic hitman", an industry insider term; or so claims John Perkins who used to be one -- interesting book and worth a read)

⬐ IkmoIkmo

Could you refer me to the IMF loan, I can't find it?

I do know Morocco took our a precautionary loan, iirc with the IMF, in the past few years which was renewed not so long ago. But it was renewed because it was not exercised, it's more of a free loan option they had secured to protect against the very swings in fossil fuel prices that a project like this diminishes due to increased energy independence. Perhaps that's the loan you're referring to? In that case, note that Morocco didn't actually lend the money, it only secured the option to borrow in case shit hits the fan. (oil goes to $100, which is a disaster for Morocco, but no sign of that anytime soon).

⬐ dools

The article I read that in originally references a mixture of private and "IFI funding"[1] which I took to mean International Financial Institutions (which includes IMF/WorldBank etc. who make loans denominated in USD)[2].

The book I referenced above is by John Perkins who worked as a consultant for a company who would justify huge loans denominated in USD for power infrastructure to developing nations, but a significant majority of the work and materials would come from US companies. So the World Bank or the IMF would loan tonnes of money to someone in USD, much of it being transferred directly to companies in the US anyway, and leaving the nation with a large debt to service in a currency they do not issue (leaving them vulnerable to pressure from the US to export goods, for example, even though people require them locally, to liberalised trade agreements, or even to be allies in conflict etc. all sorts of sordid shit; the John Perkins stuff is well worth reading).

When governments take on large debts denominated in a currency they do not issue, it's always a cause for concern. That's why MMT academics were against the Euro[3], and why so many developing nations are now locked into crippling debt service that they cannot possibly keep up with.

Countries like the US, UK, Australia and Japan who only issue debt (ie. all currency or treasury securities) denominated in their own currency, have no risk of insolvency and no trouble servicing the debt[4] -- they can choose to stop paying interest any time they want and indeed the "debt" people refer to in those economies is really a "buffer stock" rather than a "bond market"[5]

When a nation that does not issue USD (ie. any nation other than the US) takes on USD denominated debt, with interest payments denominated in USD, they're up shit creek without a paddle.

[1] http://www.worldfinance.com/infrastructure-investment/projec...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_financial_instit...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/Eurozone-Dystopia-Groupthink-Denial-Gr...

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i35uBVeNp6c

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVyyyXrcwo&index=6&list=PLo...

⬐ IkmoIkmo

Ah I see, no I wouldn't mean to take it as the IMF although they may have been part of the loan. A big chunk of the money is from climate investment funds (CIFs), which come from IFIs, of which in particular the regional IFI, the African Development Bank, in addition to private loans from Saudi Arabia and Germany. In fact it's co-owned by some of those companies, e.g. the saudi ACWA Power, the Spanish TSK etc.

Anyway, it doesn't matter as indeed all of those could be dollar denominated. I don't know if they are. It's extremely common for, particularly in english/international reporting, numbers to be reported in dollar equivalents. Whether that's the actual denomination of the loan I don't know. I do know Morocco struggles deeply with hard currency scarcity, particularly in the realm of necessary energy imports every year, so they're well aware of the issues surrounding obligations in foreign currency denominations. There's a lot of fluff pieces on this project but sadly little deep insight in how it's all structured.

Thanks for the book reference. I'd not read it but I've been introduced to the issue in college classes many times, it features heavily in international political economy classes for example of which I took a few. I hope to find some time this semester to look into all the resources you linked me, thanks for that!

⬐ aedron

Not IMF, World Bank:

http://www.worldbank.org/projects/P131256?lang=en

Speaking of shitting over a country's chances of building out proper infrastructure, have you read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452287081 Confessions of an Economic Hitman?

It's all about the USA doing exactly that, by promising massive GDP gains. When they fail to net the profit required to pay the contractors, the contractors take over the infrastructure -- netting the USA dozens of corporate-owned electrical infrastructure all over the world, chiefly South America & the Middle East (!!)

⬐ fucking_tragedy

I picked that up a few months ago but haven't had the time (management skills) to start it yet.

You find the jihadis "unreasonable".

Look, this is the list of things you could find "unreasonable":

(a) the jihadi position on God

(b) the jihadi position on US policy

(c) the jihadi method to affect change - violence

Lets deal with them one by one.

(a) is loony but pretty much irrelevant. You wouldn't feel any better if they converted to Shintoism and continued the jihad, would you?

(b) US policy is well studied so you can't really deny its lousiness. Example references:

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/...

http://www.amazon.com/Power-Systems-Conversations-Democratic...

http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/037...

http://goingtotehran.com/

(c) you can only condemn the violence if you would not do the same thing in their place.

To me, that means you should be able to sell them a peaceful method as being more effective than jihad. Well, we have a historical record.

The peaceful, liberal, pro-democratic reformers in the middle east seem to have gotten defeated and tortured by the CIA and their local satraps. Like what happened to my family.

On the other hand Jihad seems to be winning in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia and so on.

http://zenhuber.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/preview-bin-laden-dea...

So you don't have a very strong case.

⬐ tome

I'm sorry to hear about your family. It wasn't my intention to make this debate personal. What were your family working towards?

⬐ ucee054

The relative I was thinking of was an activist for constitutional democracy and against absolute monarchy. Don't know what happened to him in prison; he doesn't talk about it.

⬐ tome

I think I know what country you're talking about, and I don't deny that the western powers have a case to answer.