Nice and ongoing terror attacks in W Europe

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Why are we talking about demographics anyway?
the biggest problem with this kind of thinking - Yglesias, not you - is how it divides the world into two monolithic blocs

it ignores that India has been a functional democracy for the better part of a century (currently ruled by a right-wing nationalist party, but you could also say that about parts of the West) which generally doesn't get along with China, the many internal tensions in Islam, etc. it ignores any nuances or internal differences anywhere besides West/not West.

like, where are the democracies of Latin America - yunno that big chunk of the world where the U.S. spent decades suppressing democracy in the name of freedom (and corporate interests) in this picture? one imagines presumed, like all of Africa, to automatically be under pernicious Chinese influence

idk it basically seems like an excuse to reconcile cheerleading continued American hegemony with nominally being liberal

nb the CCP totally sucks, but this way of viewing the world was dumb and inaccurate during the Cold War and it's dumb and inaccurate now
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
like there's a bunch of versions of this view, we're going to swamped by Chinese/Indians/Muslims

the actual nativist version full of invective about Eurabia/Americastan and sharia and whatever

the IR Thucydides Trap version

this is the nice liberal version that swaps out literal swamping with "outdone in global influence"
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
in response to yr actual question the Macron stuff sounds very bad

but how bad exactly would require more granular knowledge of French domestic politics and recent history than I or probably any of us have

it's not exactly a new revelation that French multiculturalism has largely failed to incorporate minorities from former colonies

and France has to somehow address that failure. idk if these kinds of policies are a good way to do that. further repressing ppl who live in shitty banlieues with limited economic opportunities seems likely to, yunno, simply engender more resentment and amp up the vicious cycle rather than solve anything, unless there's a big carrot to go along with the big stick.

cracking down on doxxing ppl with the intent of doing them harm does seem like a good idea, as long as it's universally applied
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
how bad exactly would require more granular knowledge of French domestic politics and recent history than I or probably any of us have
like I would be interested to know to what degree if any Macron is being pressured by/trying head off the French right here

it does seem like a Le Pen-lite approach, I wouldn't be surprised if he's trying to shore up his support by appealing to part of her base

and/or going harsh law and order to head off right-wing criticism, like what the Democrats have been doing here basically forever

especially given the ongoing Yellow Vests deal, his seeming unpopularity, etc
 

vimothy

yurp
it focused on the anti-corruption drive within china atm as a vehicle for, basically, more corruption and consolidation of power. plus quite a bit about suppression of china's uighur population.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
like idk enough to tell you to what extent global supervillain China really is or isn't a threat

the PRC is definitely an existential threat to its own minorities - Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongolians, Hong Kong, etc

and its application of technology to social control is very ominous

but I'm less clear that it's going to take over the world and enforce dystopic totalitarianism on all of us

also you can make most of those same critiques of the West, just that we outsource most of the nastier bits - to, for instance, China
 

vimothy

yurp
the worst bits were interviews with uighur muslims who had been interned, who, while interned had had their children placed in state orphanages where they were taught that they were not uighurs at all but children of the chinese state. quasi-genocidal sort of vibe.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it focused on the anti-corruption drive within china atm as a vehicle for, basically, more corruption and consolidation of power. plus quite a bit about suppression of china's uighur population.
well I'm not exactly shocked that anti-corruption turns out to really be about bureaucratic infighting to consolidate corruption

shouldn't surprise anyone who knows something - again I'm no expert, but I do know a little - about the history of internal CCP dynamics

the Uighur stuff is extremely grim, no arguments there
 
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