It is about fucking time the world takes China's clandestine opium war seriously. The fact they have gotten away with this for so long is mind blowing. This has been a highly destructive and extremely successful campaign to destabilize western society.
Tell me, have you heard about OxyContin?
I'm no china apologist, but I honestly hope they destabilize Western society with opiates before we start having internal religious/ultranationalist revolts. It would be a poetic way to have history play out.
I mean, I'm firmly in the camp of trying to avoid christian nationalist / neo-fascist takeover of western society as well mate. Call me pragmatic, but I'm not a romantic when it comes to society potentially devolving into global authoritarianism.
Don't worry, China will invade us after our boxer rebellion and force us into trade agreements.
If you're downvoting this: the opium war was a series of conflicts where Britain fought to smuggle opium into China and China trying to stop it. The Boxer rebellion was an anti colonial uprising to kick westerns (British, American, and others) out of China. The Boxer protocols was a heavily imbalanced treaty that heavily destabilized China and in my opinion put conditions in place that made communist China possible.
We get the references, it was just a shit comment.
I don't think every single person got the reference but that aside I don't think it was a "shit" comment either. The opium war and the boxer protocols are very much in the minds of the Chinese communist leadership, which could be just Xi Jinping nowadays. Xi has referred to them as an “intense humiliation for the country” and a “great pain for its people”. These cultural memories are, in my opinion, definitely playing a part in china's policies when it comes to fentanyl. And that's how I interpreted that comment. Perhaps it could have been started less crassly but the core point that in the past the shoe was on the other foot is completely valid.
It's not really valid to speak of shoes and feet unless the US were the ones subjecting China to the opium, which isn't true and this whole thread conveniently glossed over.
American traders participated in trading opium in China (source)
Let me be clear, you're talking about shoes and feet like the British weren't the primary architects and mechanics of the opium wars and the American merchant participants were instead. "Cultural memories" etc.
I think as far as the Chinese are concerned British and American intervention in China is six of one and a half a dozen of the other
There's history and there are opinions
History is about taking imperfect information and constructing a narrative that fits as best as possible. Leopold von Ranke said historians should show "how it actually was" (he literally wrote "wie es eigentlich gewesen ist"). That simply isn't possible. I think it was David Hackett Fischer who said something along the lines of a historian can only know something about something, which is a far cry from "how it actually was."
Almost all history is an informed opinion backed up by primary and secondary sources. That's why we have revisionist history, feminist history, & Marxist history (among others). All these historiographical schools are looking at mostly the same sources and drawing different conclusions. New narratives; new opinions.
I've studied this region but I am by no means an expert in it. I've actually spent more time on Japanese history than Chinese history but I have studied it. I could be wrong but I firmly believe that Western intervention in China's past, especially the Boxer protocols, plays a role in how Chinese leaders see their place in the world and colors their relations with Western countries. I think one of the way this manifests itself is China's willingness to look the other direction as Chinese pharmaceutical companies create and ship the necessary ingredients for fentanyl to Mexican cartels. I do not have a window into China's politburo and I have not formally studied contemporary Chinese culture. I think I'm right but I freely admit that I could be wrong.
By all means, study the opium wars. If the Chinese are distributing fentanyl in America as revenge for the opium wars, they're fools in that they've picked the wrong targets. Besides that, China should know that revenge is a fool's errand regardless.
Terrence McKenna has a really good account of the opium wars in Food of the Gods but you have to get through the combined history of almost every other drug on earth in order to reach it. Highly recommend.
The existence of ultra-nationalists IS them destabilizing us. You think the racist idiots just organized themselves without prompting or funding?
I think that fascism is a natural reaction to a failing system. One that needs to be stomped out, but one that should be expected. Only truly head in the sand liberals think it's even majority due to outside forces. That was true in boxer china, the weimar republic, greece, and many many other places. It's true here and now too.
And why do you think the system is failing now?
The accumulation of capital at the top and rent seeking causing increasing cycles of booms and busts due to speculation while crowding out the ability for the masses to maintain a living standard.
"Chinese buyers spent $13.6 billion on US residential real estate in the year ending March 2023"
I'm certainly not saying that it's purely external influence. I'm saying this is a thing they want and are certainly feeding into.
13.6 B in an 80 trillion market is a rounding error.
Bruh we know China allows it to be gray area. They'll just spin up new companies and change ports.
But let's just pretend crackdowns will fix it when the cartels are literally synthesizing their own now with precursors in their own pro clandestine super labs.
Why not just setup a federal emergency and supplement recovery/therapy/substitution/housing/safe sites/job training+guidance and actually address the root of the problem? It's the inside of people where the real addiction to escaping their trauma lies.
That'll bring my mom back
Hahahaha!
Soft targets. Mostly meaningless.
Take on the cartels, stop them invading the United States with their enslaved and indentured illegals carrying the lion's share of drugs.
So what do you want, us to send troops to Mexico to fight the cartels?
Yes.
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