Are Russia and China trapped in a vortex of Zero-Sum Thinking?

Pavel Mosko said:

This is very naïve. There is lots of video footage, eye witness testimony etc. of the Chinese bullying small nations, sometimes even in their official territorial waters!

Not only do these do this in the South China Sea, but they invade the sea near the Galapagos Islands belonging to Peru to fish and that is thousands of miles away from China.

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Disputed territorial waters happen with every country that has a coastline, it doesn't prove a country is bent on world conquest.

FireDragon76 said:

Disputed territorial waters happen with every country that has a coastline, it doesn't prove a country is bent on world conquest.

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We might somewhat agree here. I think the Chinese have given up on some of their old dreams, as far as world wide Marxist revolution goes.

But what is going on is more than just contested coastline, China is staking out big swaths of the Oceans and invading the recognized territorial waters of smaller neighboring nations.

I think they are trying to empire build more with the Belt and Road Initiative and letting that give them access to resources, naval bases etc. from debt traps.

Pavel Mosko said:

We might somewhat agree here. I think the Chinese have given up on some of their old dreams, as far as world wide Marxist revolution goes.

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I don't think that was ever China's dream...that was the Soviet dream that China went along with for a while.

I would not characterize China's attitude as being "inward facing," however. Only that they have a certain sphere of control that they presume, and not the entire world. But that presumed sphere of control includes the seas that surround them out to the coastlines of the major island nations as well as some of the nations bordering them.

Otherwise, they don't want to control the rest of world, but they do want to ensure the rest of the world is not in position to oppose whatever actions they feel they need to take. They will act to have strings to pull as they desire. Yes, that will be international access and debt traps.

RDKirk said:

I don't think that was ever China's dream...that was the Soviet dream that China went along with for a while.

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No actually that was the dream of Mao, that was why they had the eventual split with the Soviets. The Russians were not true Communists but simply building a nationalist empire. This I think is what China is going for now, but will do this more through "Soft Power" of economics, loans and other incentives (like maybe in the future being a arms supplier) as much as possible.

Pavel Mosko said:

No actually that was the dream of Mao, that was why they had the eventual split with the Soviets.

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The reason Mao split with the Soviets was because he was not recognized by the Soviet Union as the leader of Communism after the death of Stalin, which is what he expected.

RDKirk said:

The reason Mao split with the Soviets was because he was not recognized by the Soviet Union as the leader of Communism after the death of Stalin, which is what he expected.

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Yeah I'm sure that was a big factor. All the stuff I'm mentioning comes from YouTube type documentaries I watched recently like less than a year ago. Not something I'm in expert in but like history of all kinds in general.

There was a progressive down slide in Chinese Soviet that takes place in 12 years or so where they go from being best friends to being enemies that are shooting at each other. A few different things happen with Krushev that gets the Chinese mad where he does not have Revolutionary zeal, slights their leader indirectly etc.

Landon Caeli said:

My answer is yes. It seems like they just can't seem to shake this flawed style of thinking, that is something more advanced, socially mature individuals don't seem to suffer from. Is there any way we can help those who suffer from this to understand the concept, and then acknowledge when it happens?

What are your thoughts?

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You want to offer China advice on foreign
policy and how to have a socially
mature society ?

.

Pavel Mosko said:

Yeah I'm sure that was a big factor. All the stuff I'm mentioning comes from YouTube type documentaries I watched recently like less than a year ago. Not something I'm in expert in but like history of all kinds in general.

There was a progressive down slide in Chinese Soviet that takes place in 12 years or so where they go from being best friends to being enemies that are shooting at each other. A few different things happen with Krushev that gets the Chinese mad where he does not have Revolutionary zeal, slights their leader indirectly etc.

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Britain and USA allied with Russia when it
was advantageous.
Alliances of convenience are what nations do.
Russia will eventually lose most of it's
eastern empire to China and the rest will
be a vassal state.

Estrid said:

Britain and USA allied with Russia when it
was advantageous.
Alliances of convenience are what nations do.
Russia will eventually lose most of it's
eastern empire to China and the rest will
be a vassal state.

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The rest of Russia will be a vassal state to whom?

RDKirk said:

The rest of Russia will be a vassal state to whom?

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China, who else?
They've put themselves in a dependant jr. partner
position as it is.

Landon Caeli said:

Is it socially mature to turn Russia into a vassal state? Or is that just zero-sum thinking, again?

...I'm going to say it's zero-sum thinking, and kind of proves the point of the thread, including post #7.

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When a person defines terms and actions to their choosing then
anything they say is true.
Likewise with identifying " proof" where er they
choose to gaze.

I'm guessing you have never set foot in China.

The less a person knows about somethung, the easier
it is to analyze it.

We see that all the time from our anti science posters who
routinely claim to know more than any actual research in earth.

Landon Caeli said:

It's not me defining these concepts. It's a social science topic, and the topic is on how authoritarian style leadership leads to zero-sum dilemmas.

How Dominant Leaders Go Wrong

Here, we turn to the East (China, Russia), as examples. Now we see 'projecting' and 'diversion tactics' as a method to 'win'.

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So " vortex of zero sum', " flawed style" and China as " socially
immature" is straight cut n paste?

And it's a diversion tactic to question whether you know
anything about Chinal.

Landon Caeli said:

This is a discussion on authoritarian leadership, and it's relationship to zero-sum style thinking traits.

...This is not a discussion about where I've traveled to in my life -that's off topic. Here we can share *information* for learning purposes, minus, the tit-for-tat.

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"My answer is yes. It seems like... " is how one starts an op ed.

Estrid said:

When a person defines terms and actions to their choosing then
anything they say is true.
Likewise with identifying " proof" where er they
choose to gaze.

I'm guessing you have never set foot in China.

The less a person knows about somethung, the easier
it is to analyze it.

We see that all the time from our anti science posters who
routinely claim to know more than any actual research in earth.

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I've also never set foot in Israel. Or the Maltese Islands for that matter ... **cough**

Still, I like to think I can analyze som'n about other nations, their peoples, their climate and histor(ies). I might even be tempted to make evaluations about them which carry at least a smidge of truth.

Like for instance: Russia's current leadership sucks ...