yall have no idea how mad I was that I couldn’t see 30000 miles from Chang’an on big screen theaters when it came out because no theaters in the US was putting it on, at least in my area. tbh I was surprised that Nezha 2 is getting any screens in the US now

iceberg moment or whatever but the first movie had insufferable fandom 🫠

movie itself was fine, both 2 and 1 have some kid-level basically fart jokes or whatever, overall agree that the direction had/has younger target audience

I mean, purely on the medical part, I’d say no. Dentistry and lowering infant mortality rate along with lowering maternity mortality rate is a very very very recent thing, although dispersal and access to these qualities aren’t evenly distributed today, globally and even among class divides in the imperial core.

Anyway, I just can’t imagine likely dying to childbirth in the course of having 10+ kids where 3-4 survive to adulthood if you’re lucky being Better :/

!! Also no baby formula. If you have a hard time producing [enough] milk (this is a common problem!) your infant is likely to have a hard time thriving. Animal milks are NOT a substitute for human milk for an infant. Peasant women who recently had a child/still produced milk would often be the ones providing nursemaid services for higher class families. Many other points about pests (even royalty had fleas…) and hygiene also. I’m yammering a lot but obligatory: technological progress in these measures aren’t necessarily brought about by specific economic models, eg not specifically capitalism in and of itself.

tamen de gushi by tan jiu is really cute… (err its manhua not manga but, anyway)

Dongfeng missile program 🫡

Don’t know if we’ll be seeing chinese scientists in US under house arrest or worse again (hopefully not) but, for those unfamiliar: 钱学森 Qian Xuesen co-founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1940s), later got the attention of McCarthy-ites and his family was subject to basically house arrest and surveillance for 5 years (deferred deportation), went back to China and led a bunch of programs and never looked back, became known as the “Father of Chinese Rocketry”.

the US attracted brain drain candidates for decades now, but would soon rather let anticommunism and racism get the better of them again and repeat the same “mistakes” and shoot themselves in the foot… honestly better for the Chinese people who can and did return as sinophobia ramps up (and probably will continue apace again in Trump’s 2nd term, not that the western media didn’t try to elevate sinophobia during Biden’s term between Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan, weather balloon, accusing zoo of fielding a man in a suit as a sunbear, etc). Space Race then, chips/AI now (article mentions Mr Sun returned during Trump’s first term, motivated by the racist ‘China Initiative’)

2 things: 1. coming “to the defense” would be crossing a line on that country’s own sovereignty, or its own development/buildup of sovereignty. (China’s not interested in the soviet model, and I think this has merit because we saw how areas propped up by soviets fell as the ussr waned and then collapsed.) building infrastructure doesnt mean unilateral alliance, it’s a business transaction, albeit one that meaningfully materially strengthens the beneficiary country’s ability towards economic development and sovereignty.

2/ someone come correct me if I’ve got my understanding of how bonds work/macroeconomics/monetary policy/forex backwards but China owns a lot of US debt, and is actively shedding it. Used to be #1 foreign holder of US treasuries, now it’s #2 (#1 currently Japan). In the past China bought US bonds using its trade surplus in dollars, which would basically recycle $ to continue to develop its own manufacturing and towards growing its own middle class+its own domestic market. Now that China’s developed a pretty robust domestic market (eg doesnt need to rely on US to consume those produced goods and fuel economy), China doesn’t need to put dollars back into that machine, but it still has a trade surplus in dollars. So financing other projects like those on BRI or among BRICS with those dollars is a solution to that problem (holding onto that surplus isn’t economically sound…), and bonus points for building material foundations for dedollarization.

someone else’s analysis that’s similar to my second point, and probably has a better understanding of that economics stuff: How China recycles its huge trade surplus with EU, US into BRICS infrastructure projects, risk-free

do you have any names of said analysts? this is the second time I’ve heard this “demographic decline” point* from non-lemmygrad users.

• this point sounds dubious/bogus because “demographic decline” is vague enough phrasing that makes it seem like slowing population growth means actual net loss in population.

that’s his online handle… truck nuts mentality anyone?

hm, I generally try to avoid blanket adjectives like “bad” for entire movements or events. at least for those with targets that aren’t obvious “we’re setting out to exploit people”

western propaganda likes to overexaggerate famine (yay atrocity propaganda), while one of the main concerns of GLF was land reform-agricultural reform (speaking of agricultural reform and development - i remember reading about xi jinping’s background/starting from the bottom of bureaucracy: he had a hand in agricultural reforms for his municipality that boosted yield.). Without hitting the books at this very moment, I’ve also heard the famine situation reframed as residual of the pattern of famines that were already starting to phase out as stability returned to china (coming out of a century of strife, occupation, and wars–conditions that prevent a largely agrarian society from being able to focus on tending crops) + agricultural developments were works in progress to deal with naturally occurring cycles of drought years and flood years. regarding agriculture x climate, the biggest progress is towards drought and disease resistance in crops, but afaik that’s closer to contemporary era than GLF

of course there were errors or mistakes made in GLF (also discussed by internal critiques and taught to future generations) but the gist and spirit of “we need to industrialize and catch up” was not considered an error. off the top of my head as an example, low quality iron produced in rural centers obviously short of goals towards quality steel production

I don’t think offensive play is necessary, and as with the other “plays”/economics and tech, I think PRC leadership is showing a steady hand with the long game/goal towards completing peaceful unification without firing a single shot. The process of dedollarization and erosion of western hegemony towards multipolarity means they aren’t in any rush, on the contrary, it would be foolish to do so. If anything, I think we (as observers) and obviously the Chinese should be on the lookout for false-flag attempts.

I wrote a bunch of stuff (mostly going, “same”, venting) but then scrapped it. It’s important to remember why accelerationism is the wrong path. (Although I have to question whether “acceleration” that is self-inflicted by the state should still be called something that is usually describing non-state actors. Like… we didnt do that.)

Actively creating worsening conditions to spur more people to become radicalized cannot guarantee to which end(s) they become radicalized towards. And beyond people being radicalized towards fascism, Yes, communists in the imperial core can often (or are forced to) collaborate with anarchists but at the end of the day most of anarchist actions are not towards building material conditions to a sounder future (beyond their immediate locale anyway, and also if they even have any consideration towards organized ahem arms) and most anarchists particularly the anti-reading type are vehemently anti-communist (although I have met rare ones who do read and largely agree with AES).

if you want suggestions for plants, particularly ones that are hard to kill and easy to care for, I have a few tips (and beginner care tips)

I don’t even think ya need anticommunist liberals to hamper meaningful resistance, pacifist “leftists” would be plenty enough.

editing for conciseness/i ramble too much

some points to think about ::

• retracting from current operations that ultimately are money-makers for the MIC comes with a "cost“ incurred against “national security interests abroad” or whatever jargon they like to call imperialist operations.
• the track record of new planes failing if they can even get off the runway.
• hypersonics or (as far as I have heard) defense against hypersonics, lacking
• industrial capacity and supply chain not there anymore. sure it can be built up but how long would that take to reverse and how could it still square up on bloated rent-seeking financial services/investment economic basis (or rather, how it would even be possible to commit to efficiency while rent-seeking behavior is allowed to continue. I can’t see trump or any president going shoulder-to-shoulder with like… banks. redevelopment of industry will not be a money maker, upfront costs are immense, training is expensive, etc)
• mining capabilities can be built up again but we do not have domestic sources for certain things like rare earth metals
• modern warfare depending more on computers/tech. so, manufacture of chips. getting tmsc to build a plant in arizona certainly is a move in that direction, but uh. look at the news regarding those operations.

in summary, I do see a point and trend towards retooling/trimming the fat, starting an era of concentrating inwards rather than outwards, but even if it was possible to oust the vultures of the MIC, I’m still unsure if that would be enough to get the military on proper even footing with foreign adversaries, particularly on innovation and tech

“most progressive” framed around since the 60s is oddly convenient innit

This is my opinion having some general knowledge but not like, all that well-versed in the particulars.

I think for the era, the sino-soviet split that became more and more prominent in the previous decade was something they wanted to capitalize on, pun intended.

Anyway prior to Nixon/Kissinger reaching out to the mainland, they (as part of the leaders of the international order particularly UN) were playing as if ROC ruled all of China. Which is plain nonsense given the landmass and population. New markets and new cheap labor is desirable for expansion, particularly under a neo-colonial relationship (prior to the development of the blueprint for neoliberal extraction perfected in later decades, using financial levers/institutions). So, it was unfeasible to continue to act like ROC could actually speak to things regarding trade and markets and such, especially since China had started their nuclear program about a decade before the 1972 meeting. Extending a hand to form a relationship was an eventuality, doesn’t really matter which particular individuals were wearing the “crown”.

Tho it is important that they agreed to a One China Policy, and such agreements are still in place today even if the US lowkey acts like it’s not there.

edit: run on and added conclusion sentence. oh also added mention of one china policy

Sometimes the sinophobia machine paints the June fourth event as a brutal quashing of a student protest, which is like maybe a smidgeon of the truth in that there were students there, and well… the US has got that right at home, from recent ceasefire campus protests to Kent State 1970.

However regarding 6-4, I must point out that many prominent student leaders were very much not gunned down. Many of them (along with other dissidents) smuggled out of PRC by Operation Yellowbird; CIA and MI6 already had a network in place as they were aiding students in organizing protests, so were able to react quickly when China announced arrest warrants. Like, these student leaders didn’t die, they went on to get (or were honorarily awarded) degrees from prestigious universities. They’re still alive today, thriving even. (except for one guy who wants to go back to China, even tried to turn himself in, nope. Dude’s got a whooole interesting entanglement in dissident activities, but then again many of the other beneficiaries of Op Yellowbird do as well)

China Digital Times

one of their sponsors is literally NED, yep

the real 川建国 🫡