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1·4 days agoPretending anything when it comes to the US can be a very dangerous thing, especially when you act on that ‘pretend’.
Do you want equal treatment, or equal outcomes? You can never have both in international relations.
As you degrade this argument into absurdity, I can no longer accept that it is worthwhile continuing. You have no intentions of intelligent discussion.
What exactly does that mean? The egalitarian paradox - the more equally the law is applied, the more dis-equal they become.
I understand the pragmatics of dealing with Trump. A wise statesman picks their battles. Saying ‘I will not be part of a genocide’ when you can’t do anything about it is hardly a meaningful objective, unless the objective is a photo op, which it appears to be in this case. In such cases, talk is useless against a madman. It rarely does anything to actually stop the genocide. But hey, if you smile for the photo op, it might convince the gullible that you are doing something.
Meanwhile, in Wales, they passed a law that allows them ti fire a politician who tells a lie.
That our government is pragmatic and considers that it is not worth poking the tiger on passing a frivolous act that will antagonize the US, provoke Trump into a retaliatory vendetta, yet accomplish no meaningful objective.
If ‘millions in poverty’ is your definition of a ‘developing country’ then America is definitely still a developing country.
You are confusing the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative of China with BRICS. The Belt and Road Initiative would happen, and these deals would be made, with or without BRICS. It just makes a really neat photo op to have it in the background, and a useful term for Brazil or India to use instead of truthfully saying it is all part of the Belt and Road. No one calls it ‘BRICS’ when they talk about the train line between China and Europe, but that is also the Belt and Road.
Canada is making deals with the ASEAN countries without being party to the organization. You do not need an association to bring countries to the table. BRICS is NOT needed to bring the countries together, it just makes a nice photo op background when the leaders meet.
It is certainly not me that has a misconception of China. I am well aware of how the Chinese system works. For instance, it is not a ‘one party’ system, it is a ‘no party’ system. ‘Communism’ is simply a term (and an English term at that, the true term for China’s system is, of course, in Chinese) the West has coined, then defined in the way the West wants it defined, and then applied to China, for the West to use in its anti-Chinese propaganda. But to the Chinese, the term they use defines how their democratic system works. Nothing to do with ‘political parties’ but a term used similar to our Canadian term of ‘Parliamentarians, Parliamentary System, and Parliament.’ It is their form of government, not a definition of a party. It is not necessary to have a ‘political party’ system in order to have a democratic government.
To the Chinese, ‘saving face’ is everything. No job, you lose face. It is not about being fed, housed, and cared for, it is about facing your fellow Chinese citizen. Automation or not, every Chinese citizen is promised a job by their government. So regardless of any social safety net, full employment is the reason why the current leaders are still in power, and they are fully aware that if they do not maintain full employment, the people will toss them out in fully democratic elections.
China is fully into automation because the Chinese population is in rapid decline, and they are currently in a transition period between having too many workers for the jobs available, and having too few workers. Japan has exactly the same problem, and is in the same transitory period.
The No More Loopholes Act was a ‘just pretend’ act to make it look like some MPs were doing something about it, Why? For the ‘principal’? The optics? So their conscience could be clear? ‘Well, we tried’. The Act was toothless, there was no way the US government would have paid it any heed. They commenced the Iranian bombing action without even warning Canadian soldiers on the US bases so they could evacuate ahead of time. Just went ahead and left our soldiers in danger. You think they would ever be choosy about the ammunition they used?
The deals you mentioned are routine between-country deals. They would have been made with or without BRICS the organization. Even in these cases, BRICS was just a photo op. to make it look like BRICS the organization was meaningful. You keep refining your definition, and each refinement comes closer and closer to my allegation that it is just a photo op. Did these countries REALLY make these deals just because of BRICS? They did so out of necessity and opportunity, not because of ‘friendly camaraderie and BRICS organization relations’.
China does not have an overcapacity structural problem, it has an employment problem. The Chinese insist on full employment. In order to build the huge middle income group, it needed well-paying manufacturing jobs. So it encouraged investment in production capacity to create employment. That employment drove demand, to absorb the excess production. China is definitely having a problem with coordinating the two objectives. That is, the easiest way to reduce capacity is to close manufacturing lines. However, that leads to unemployment, which China can not tolerate. So it keeps the lines running. The easiest solution, of course, is to insist that the average Chinese citizen replaces their toaster (consumer goods) every year. The West did this by ‘planned obsolescence’ and ‘designed weaknesses’. But China takes a different approach - they will maintain production, maintain employment, but continue to grow the middle income group to take up the slack.
The other problem China has, with regards to full employment, is that they have been extremely effective in introducing automation into almost everything, including tunneling, ship building, driverless transportation, and even road building. The more they introduce automation, the fewer jobs they need, and thus the more manufacturing capacity they need to absorb the work force. I suspect the solution will be a shorter work week.
(https://harris-sliwoski.com/chinalawblog/china-employment-law-2025-996-is-no-longer-okay/)
They are also doing something that the West refused to do. They are heavily investing through loans in their Belt and Road initiative to raise the standard of living in the former third world countries, specifically to produce a larger export market for their goods. It remains to be seen if this strategy worked - Vietnamese, for instance, saw their standard of living escalate drastically, but they are now exporting to the same market the Chinese hoped to export to. The Law of Unintended Consequences.
We have lots of oil reserves.
They are still in the ground.
It’s the principle? So we just pretend, and our conscience is clear
We PRETEND to manage it with every other country,
Exactly how would the Canadian government be able to enforce it? The Americans will do what the Americans are going to do.
If you have any Canadian ancestors, you could be in luck.
Getting to Canada is not the problem. Getting back into the States could be, however.
Canada using the Euro?
Canada would be fourth largest EU country by GDP.