Originally Posted by
dr dre
It’s going to be so easy for China to dominate the West when those “defenders of Western Civilisation” come up with rubbish like this.
A mongoloid no one cared about. China was quite advanced in the fields of science, manufacturing, astronomy, innovation, economics, trade, art and engineering, especially ahead of Europe in the Dark Ages. Ask Marco Polo if he thought of the Chinese as “Mongoloids”. He admired them as far back as the 13th century and saw them as more civilised than Europeans. Most of European age of exploration was to find better trade routes to the Chinese economy. Napoleon certainly saw their future power and capability. I think some very important people in world history cared a lot about China.
sitting in the back corner of the classroom. In fact quite a few historians hold the view that China was the quietly dominant world power up until the beginning of the “Century of Humiliation”, and all we are seeing now is the final step of a rise back to their previous status.
Like I’ve said Westerners truly don’t know enough about China to judge it properly, because if you think of their place in the global order for the majority of the last 2000 years as “picking their nose and urinating on the floor without shame” you truly don’t know what you are talking about.
You are correct, dr dre. China is probably the biggest economy on the planet (and has been for a while recently, after definitely being so during most of the 19th century). China is and almost always was an extraordinarily powerful military and technological country.
The fact remains: The extent of Australia’s engagement with China remains a choice (for now). That engagement has enormous monetary benefits, but it still comes at a cost. Lots of Australians are questioning whether the cost is worth the benefits. Many are saying: No.
It may be that some of that many will return to mature-aged baby status when confronted with the prospect of more expensive goods and services in return for increased national self-sufficiency. We’ll see when folks vote.
If I had to bet folding money I’d bet on the mature-aged babies swaying the politicians (many of whom don’t need to be swayed) to return to the ‘quickest buck made in the laziest way’ trading arrangements. So: There’s probably going to be a return to the foreign student rivers of gold eventually. Yay!