Xi, Putin Score Wins as More Asia Leaders Aim to Join BRICS | Hacker News Reader

Xi, Putin Score Wins as More Asia Leaders Aim to Join BRICS

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Framing this in terms of “Xi” and “Putin” is myopic. My home country of Bangladesh is eager to join BRICS: https://www.bssnews.net/news/193064. The support for doing so is not based on some “NATO versus Russia and China” calculus. It’s more that they are looking out for their own interests, and just don’t care about west’s ideological fixations. China invests in Bangladesh, Russia built a nuclear plant there, and the US is nowhere to be seen. Moreover, China is just looking for ROI and won’t intrude on your domestic politics like the US.

As the locus of power moves to China, moreover, there is less motivation to side with the US. China is leading in areas like nuclear power and batteries, while the US is at the forefront of lobotomizing its population with social media.

> while the US is at the forefront of lobotomizing its population with social media

I have to point out that China is, too.

No country is "just looking for ROI", and even if they are, that's not necessarily a good thing.

I think China more than any other country is just looking to make money. And that’s a good thing. The rest of the world is really fed up with the U.S. and its ideological motivations for messing with other countries. For example, Biden’s recent Karening about “human rights” in Bangladesh: https://www.aei.org/op-eds/bangladesh-shows-the-limits-of-bi....

I don't mean to be rude, but this reads like propaganda.

>China is just looking for ROI and won’t intrude on your domestic politics like the US.

This is objectively false. China absolutely intrudes on domestic politics. See the illegal police stations[0] they have setup across the world. China also continues to attempt to influence politics in Australia[1]. I would be very suprised if these activities are not also happening in Bangladesh and other countries.

* [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_police_overseas_servic...

* [1] - https://www.aspi.org.au/report/taking-low-road-chinas-influe...

The article you cited is an example of China dealing with Chinese people abroad, or lobbying in other country’s foreign policies regarding China. The U.S., by contrast, meddles with other countries with respect to those countries domestic policies, which have nothing to do with the U.S. or the welfare of U.S. citizens.

I promise I’m not a bot. Just conveying an opinion that’s pretty much universal on the subcontinent where I’m from. Maybe moreso in Bangladesh because the U.S. supported Pakistan through its genocide of Bangladeshis. But in Singapore, for example, the CIA tried to bribe Lee Kuan Yew: https://youtu.be/vNQXLhIcPrc?si=yDyJQT9dfxd-qVuL. Had they succeeded, that single act could have derailed the path to prosperity of an entire nation.

Similarly, Biden has been complaining recently about the “human rights” record of the current administration in Bangladesh. This makes everyone extremely nervous, because when the U.S. starts sniffing about “human rights” that’s often a prelude to economic sanctions or regime change or worse. But the current administration is extremely popular: it has been able to maintain order and grow the economy for nearly a decade—a rare feat in a disorganized and disorderly country. There is a real risk that the morons at the U.S. state department could derail what’s been a miraculous run by the current government over a bunch of stuff most Bangladeshis absolutely do not care about.

Edit: I'm not interested in continuing this conversation. Have a nice day.

> See the illegal police stations[0] they have setup across the world.

Started by >According to Matt Schrader, writing for the Jamestown Foundation, "overseas Chinese service stations"

> Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Casey helped back the formation of the Jamestown Foundation

Directly written by the CIA, you dont even have to jump hoops.

> Directly written by the CIA, you dont even have to jump hoops.

Hah, good catch.

Thanks for pointing this out. I had read about this topic elsewhere, but did not have those links readily available so I linked the first thing I found through search.

For what is imo a more balanced take, see these comments from a China law expert at YLS:

https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/overseas-police-station...

https://mstdn.party/@Chinalawtranslate/110226885383647349

https://mstdn.party/@Chinalawtranslate/110503867487792072

Thank you for the education here. I had read about this topic elsewhere, but not very in depth. I appreciate the links!

From these sources, it seems the issue is less the stations themselves and more the agents in them acting as a reporting apperatus of those critical of China. To me, this is just semantics. These activities are happening, but the "police stations" are not the cause of them.

Ok so LLM bots are on HN now... scary

> the US is nowhere to be seen

In FY 2023, the US was indeed only the fourth-largest source of net foreign direct investment inflows. The first three were the UK, Netherlands and South Korea. Hong Kong in seventh place, China in eleventh. Russia is actually nowhere to be seen.

Source: page 15 of https://www.bb.org.bd/pub/halfyearly/fdisurvey/fdisurveyjanj...

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