This is funny in an "god damn it" kind of way.

"We spent a week trying to turn a stray weather balloon in to a major international incident and then when we called them they didn't even pick up?!"

I can't imagine how frustrating it must be trying to conduct diplomacy with this kind of childish idiocy.

  • Tankiedesantski [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    And Chinese leaders are suspicious of the whole U.S. notion of a hotline — seeing it as an American channel for trying to talking their way out of repercussions for a U.S. provocation.

    Con artists mad their marks aren't talking to them.

      • MaoistLandlord [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I imagine it’s intended to be an emergency hotline. Like if a Chinese pilot crashes into Wyoming or something. But the US treats it like when you punch your brother and immediately apologize so you don’t get in trouble

        • Awoo [she/her]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          Do something in public but have different rhetoric behind closed doors.

          I guess the Chinese might be considering forcing everything into public discussion, no more backrooms would harm the west more than them.

          Think of it this way, if you have no method of telling the Chinese that you don't actually mean all the warmongering you're doing then the Chinese might take it seriously and do something about it. Without the backchannel your public rhetoric needs to be MUCH more careful, it stops you from propagandising in the same way. The backchannel is thusly a method of doing warmongering without repercussions, taking it away only has benefits to the Chinese side who aren't warmongering.

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      They're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They want to warmonger for their base (and domestic military industrial complex), but their economic positions also make it so they have to maintain diplomatic relations with the nations they warmonger against.

      A contradiction that will result in ruination

        • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Seeing as how China and Russia have actually sensible economic processes and understand the fact that the United States current part leads only to it's own downfall, they know that the best course of action is to allow that downfall to happen and basically only intervene to prevent total global supply chain collapse (China more than Russia on this front).

          As the global hegemony of American empire disintegrates, alternatives like BRICS and B&R are the tools with which global production and trade will continue. Those systems don't need to beat American imperialism, they just have to exist and pick up the markets that leave the Western sphere of influence.

  • THC
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    deleted by creator

  • CoolerOpposide [none/use name]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    First the Saudis with Biden and now China lol. America is so stuck in Cold War mindset that it still thinks people want to talk on the phone

  • Wertheimer [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Hahaha, the "it just rang" quotation is from a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation still bitter about her call being screened in 2009.

    It took decades of Washington pushing to get Beijing to agree to the current system of military crisis communications, said David Sedney, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense who negotiated it.

    “And then once we had it in place, it was clear that they were very reluctant to use it in any substantive purpose,” Sedney said.

    "I bullied my classmate to add me as a friend on AOL Instant Messenger, and then they never signed on!"

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    To the extent that the imperial personhood of the us can be personified, that person will become increasingly childish as its contradictions grow.

  • TheGamingLuddite [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I remember reading somewhere that CPC officials don't read contemporary American authors talking about America with the exception of Lasch's culture of narcissism.

  • anoncpc [comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I’ve imagine they already shut down the channel after the witch fiasco