China
China - Friend of Foe, remarks by Vince Cable
I am fascinated by the 14 min speech by Vince Cable, starting from 10:18.of this video.
He is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015 under PM David Cameron.
He is fair and objective in his remarks on China and Hong Kong. He is intellectually of the top grade and puts many politicians to shame.
Here is my summary of the points put forward by Vince Cable.
1. It is inevitable that China's economy will grow to be larger than the US economy, as they have 4 times of the population. Even if China's standard of living is one quarter of US, their economy will be comparable.
2. The US have to live with this fact, and accept the growth of China.
3. Britain used to be the largest economy in the world 100 years ago. They have now moved to the 8th rank. They accepted this fact.
4. China made it very clear, when they opened up to the world, that their priorities were:
a) Stability under an authoritarian system
b) Their focus is to raise the living standards of the people.
This was accepted by the western countries then. China did not change its stance.
5. China allowed Hong Kong to operate a "democratic system" but they have only one "red line" - that there should be no violence. The protestors in Hong Kong crossed this red line and engaged in violent protests. It prompted the China authority to act. The protestors were responsible for causing Hong Kong to lose its "democracy".
6. Xi Jinping came into power 10 years ago. He stated that China does not wish to export revolution, or to flood the world with hungry refugees. China does not wish to interfere with other countries and ask other countries not to interfere with China's affairs or undermine its sovereignty.
7. All countries, when they were developing, stole intellectual property rights. This had occurred with Japan, Korea, Taiwan, so China was not different. In its early stage, America stole IP from Britain. China now acts responsibly in upholding intellectual property rights.
8. China has recently opened its financial market (a long standing request of its trading partners).
9. Britain benefited greatly from economic relations with China.
10. China behaved responsibly in upholding the global economic system. America, under Donald Trump, undermined this international order.
11. The major Muslim countries are on the side of China when dealing with the issue of Xinjiang. This makes the criticism of the western countries hollow.
12. It is important for the western countries to talk with China to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in third countries that China has influence, and also in China.
Tan Kin Lian
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Sir Vincr Cable was reasonable, enlightened, fair minded and objective in his comments. My respects.
The American, (what's his name?) is something else. A typical bigot and chauvinist who is so very blinkered in his views . He's the typical lying unreasonable ugly American and I don't really want to waste any more words about him.
Albert Tan 21 Feb 2022