I’m pretty sure that’s what these places are. At the end of the article it says people are mostly there for collaboration and office space, but that some people are there for fake work. Whenever I see articles about China now, I have to question the validity of them. Are there people there for fake work? Clearly, but that’s not what that office is for according to the article itself. And you’d have to ask the simple question, does that happen in other nations as well? Absolutely. But for some reason, news about China, they’ll only admit that at the very end. Suspicious

I’m a bit confused. Are you saying lots of Europeans are saying they stand with China besides the far right?

And was proven to work by China as that’s literally what they did. But I think the fear of looking like they side with China is making them not do it. The taboo of standing with China is that taboo amongst western nations that they would sacrifice their health and wealth to not do it.

This is the problems with western thinking. Everything has to do with the west. Everything China does apparently is because of the west, or in this case USA. This has nothing to do with the west or USA. It also doesn’t really have all that much to do with humanity either. As many have noted, China cares about China. Since they care about China, it’s in their best interest to fund something like the WHO in order to prevent diseases spreading as that can obviously effect China. Diseases don’t care about borders.

It’s the same reason China cares about green tech. Sure it helps humanity, but it’s mostly to save China for the future Chinese. If the side effect is the world gets cleaner, all the better. Of course the west twists it as China is developing green tech to have a monopoly on green tech. Hey, if you can do better, do it. Otherwise you’re literally burning down the world because China does it better.

This is very true. I had a cat that recently passed away at 17. While I’ve had cats my entire life, none had an attachment like this one. It followed commands and would dote around me like a dog. He would even get upset if I gave other cats more attention than him. So naturally we bonded more since it was easier to bond with this cat as he sought attention. So there was a cycle of him paying attention to me so I paid attention to him. Now I want to be clear, my other cats also loved me very much, but this was different.

So when it was his time, it was one of the saddest things I ever experienced. Other cats when they passed away would try to hide, apparently this is a natural instinct to protect their families from disease and predators when they leave a corpse. But not this cat. All he wanted was to be by my side as he was passing away. It was clear he knew and would meow when he couldn’t find me, which was largely because he couldn’t really move since he was dying. When the vet came to put him down, his last action was to look around the room to make sure the whole family was there, then he rested his head and waited for his end. That was heart breaking. His love for me and our family was so great that he went against his own base instincts, I have never seen that before.

Well, sure. But none of them would be enough pressure to change the US direction. Also, China already basically used all of them.

Rare earth being the most famous one. But much like sanctions on Russia this will always be leaky.

Trade with nations on USA’s hit list. Russia being the best example. But China already does trade with them. They’d have to start to break EU and UN sanctions to do more, and while upsetting USA would be nice, they don’t want to create a tear with Europe.

Stopping Chinese students from going to the US. This would be a longer play, but forcing a reverse brain drain would benefit China to US detriment. However, Trump is already doing this for free.

Creating actual alliances, if this were to happen it would put USA on the back foot as they’d have many nations they would suddenly have to contend with. However, this goes against China’s very ethos. China believes alliances are problematic and creates divisions in the world. This is why China has no allies. And to China’s point, look at what Trump just did to his allies.

I could go on. Other options are too weak to make a dent or Trump is already giving it to China for free. It’s hard to make an effective move when your opponent is throwing golden opportunities at you. To be honest, China mostly just wants everything to play out and see where the pieces lay.

China absolutely has the power over the US to make the US feel pain. The problem is any use of that power would make China feel just as much pain. It would be self-immolation. The three main things China can do are.

Cut all exports. Ironically, Trump did that to himself so that’s why Trump capitulated.

Sell all US assets. Not just bonds. Of course this would absolutely destroy China’s economy, so a no go.

Nuclear war. But this is the end of humanity, so also a no go.

So China has the power, but would need to basically be willing to end life as we know it, or do what Trump did to himself. Again, ironically that was the one thing that didn’t involve total annihilation and Trump willingly committed seppuku. So weird.