Comment by aunty_helen
16 days ago
Why are you using Russia and China as examples of the bad guys here. They're not asking for global access to everyones data, the UK is. The UK are the bad guys.
16 days ago
Why are you using Russia and China as examples of the bad guys here. They're not asking for global access to everyones data, the UK is. The UK are the bad guys.
Why did you assume the context was "bad guys?" It's a well-known fact that there's a lot of geopolitical tension between Russia/China and Western Europe. The comment is raising the point that by setting this precedent they are opening the doors for their geopolitical rivals to publicly do the same (we already know it happens through private state-sponsored cyber gangs).
I read it as using Russia and China as the other guys, rather than the bad guys. The idea is to eliminate any pre-existing feelings of trust and illustrate the fact that once your data is held by anyone in the global intelligence community you should think of it as being held by everyone in the global intelligence community.
Whatever you think of their politics, they are authoritarian in structure. There are fewer restrictions on what those governments can do with the information. I’m not saying anyone should trust the UK government here, but it’s easier to see the risks in a country that doesn’t have to be accountable to the people or the legal system.
Because the UK is “on our side”. We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
I dont think that is actually true in those cases.
Relations with China were pretty cosy till they did a 180 around the second Bush administration and started all that Wolf Warrior diplomacy, 9 dotted line stuff, Hongkong crackdowns.......
Regarding Russia, nobody really cared at all till it was absolutely impossible to ignore. Putin seems to think that he needs the west as an enemy to bolster his standing and power. Just remember after starting the full scale invasion he proudly declared "I hope I will now be heard" or something to that effect. In Russian mass media the imperial project has long been clear and accepted.
It’s a reference to 1984 by George Orwell. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_geography_of_Ninet...
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> Relations with China were pretty cosy till they did a 180 around the second Bush administration and started all that Wolf Warrior diplomacy, 9 dotted line stuff, Hongkong crackdowns.......
No, relations with China were warm right up through the end of the Obama administration and into Trump's first term. That's why the first approach China took to the Biden administration was to hope for straightforward normalization of relations.
China started issuing 10-year visas to Americans under Obama. The Wolf Warrior movies, after which the policy is named, started coming out in 2015.
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That's a... unique take. You might want to check out the Century of Humiliation. [1] The one thing you do have right is that "good relations" in contemporary times seem to translate into "completely subservient, even to point of a willingness to engaging in self detrimental behavior if demanded." What happened around the second Bush administration was that China no longer had to be subservient, because their economy started booming, and so they could stand up for their own basic interests. One of the very few things they've pushed for is relative autonomy alongside Taiwan, which is even part of an agreement we ostensibly agree to, while then working to undermine that relationship in every way possible. You are either subservient or an enemy. Hegemony in a nutshell.
The same is largely true of Russia as well. Far from wanting the US as an enemy, Putin even inquired about joining NATO in the Clinton era. I'm sure there were some snickers about 'he doesn't get it, does he'? In fact the CIA initially felt Putin would be a terrible leader since he'd be unable to reign in Russia which was spiraling into chaos and mass criminality in the 90s. Their foresight there was about as accurate as usual.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation
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> Regarding Russia, nobody really cared at all till it was absolutely impossible to ignore.
Regarding Russia, people have cared since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. The fear of communism and concerns about Russia grew until the red scare in the 1920s, through the cold war, and continues to do this day. There has never been a single point in your life when "nobody really cared at all" about Russia.
America's concerns over Russia died down a lot from what it was after the collapse of the USSR but never really went away. That said, if Putin hadn't been doing his best to fan the flames America would probably still be focused on the middle east as their new favorite boogeyman.
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Because russia is a bag guy? (Idk about China, but considering they support russia...)
Have you been living under a rock?
I'll be explicit: russia is a terrorist state. Majority of russian population supports the unprovoked genocidal war it currently wages on Ukraine.
Russia is no more terrorist state, than USA is.
That was USA scorched Vietnam. That was USA killing civilians in Iraq and Afganistan. That was USA overthrowing foreign goverments, including Ukrainian... And then it preached to Russia on what to do with neighboring states...
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Are you the speaker for the majority of the population?
Or is that claim based on the election results, in a state where opposition leaders, journalists, war critics, or even simple lesbians get jailed for said “crimes”?
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>Majority of russian population supports the unprovoked genocidal war
Yeah. And who doesn't support - went straight to gulag for 8-20 years. Fortunately, almost everyone there supports it, amazing unity.
He is just trying to show how it would feel if the shoe was on the other foot.
>They're not asking for global access to everyones data, the UK is.
They literally do.
Because they are ruthless crazy murderers? Because they want to turn us into radioactive ash (basically every day on Russian state TV)?
DPRUK
this is at best a disingenuous argument
(russia and china would love to have access to that data. so would a lot of other governments)
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