Payback to China

[Southernguy]

Re: Payback to China

Accepted: I forgot Vietnam 1979 invasion. Don't saying China is an innocent foreign actor. But from my Latin American perpective (Middle Easters and some others could agree) no possible comparison. Just how many military, military-civilian coups, direct military invasions have we kindly received from USA and allies. Naming them would be a futile exercise. You perfectly know them. China, on the other way is buying our meat, soybeans, iron ore, oil, and whatever. And it supplies everything manufactured from cars to cell phones. That's, yes, another kind of imperialism. But in this case is mostly our own fault. No political or military pressures I can recall from China. So, I am not naive. Maybe, just maybe, some day China shall emerge as main world power and adopt the same behavior England and then USA has in the past. Probable? yes. Sure no. But that is far from my personal time frame. In the mean while....

Several actually.

1)Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1979: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

This was China’s, or more specifically, the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Liberation Army CCP/PLA last offensive kinetic military action.

And it was a catastrophic failure.

2)Political & Economic Warfare: https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/ch...s-perspective/

An easy argument can be made that China has been conducting political, economic, psychological, and media/information warfare against the US/West.

It just requires expanding one’s definition of war and warfare beyond just the popular and over simplistic misconception of war.

Much like Iran, which has been at war with the US for 40 years. With a few exceptions, Iran has largely avoided a head to head fight with the US, because it knows it will lose horrifically.

Iran has chosen a cheaper, and far more effective, asymmetric path.

China has taken a similar approach and avoided direct US kinetic strength, and instead leveraged the majority remaining non-kinetic spectrum of warfare combined with a consistent, long-term strategy and unequalled, multi-decade time horizon.

While most people in the west rarely think beyond next Monday, our adversary is thinking beyond the next century.

China’s One Belt,One Road absolutely dwarfs the Marshall Plan in inflation adjusted terms.

Now imagine China’s BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei) working in complete alignment to not just leverage global physical supply chain infrastructure, but digital as well.

Imagine BATH as the digital equivalent of Army, Navy, Air Force, & Marines working in unison under the direction of government command. That how the CCP/PLA view it.

As our government and FAANG+ battle each other(and us).

The Marshall Plan was warfare.

FAANG+ is warfare, except our digital Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are too busy fighting us and each other to fight the real adversary, which is CCP/PLA tyranny,

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Payback to China

Lake, what's your take on this Red Chinese "Unrestricted Warfare" doctrine. Seems to me a case could be made that this outbreak (along with the ongoing "reverse Opium War") fits nicely under this notion of "war without limits."

I'm deeply concerned with the "COVID-19 as bioweapon" conspiracy narrative.

To me, this narrative panders to the ignorant, risks repulsing the majority, and nudges us to the more kinetic slices of war.

I do not believe the CCP/PLA created this.

Biological weapons are incredibly unpredictable things to manage.

However, I do believe the CCP/PLA is clearly taking advantage of any opportunities available or adversary vulnerabilities exposed.

An additional concern of mine is the growing narrative of an all-powerful China akin to that of the Soviet Union in the decade leading up to its collapse.

I understand the perceived need for oversimplistic narratives such as "This is a Chinese bioweapon" and "China is all-powerful", but they don't pass the sniff test with much of the population who oppose the administration and have record-low trust in our own authority.

I believe a more truthful and realistic narrative to build should be akin to the 1983 America's Cup loss to Australia.

Prior to 1983, 99% of Americans had no idea what America's Cup even was.

But when told America lost it, the average American's behaviour changed to:

1)How do we get it back?
2)What is America's Cup again?

I believe we need to ignite "competitionism" as opposed to generic nationalism, which all too often leads down dark paths.

After Persian Gulf War One, it became crystal clear to every US adversary that it would be futile to oppose the US conventionally/kinetically.

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui's joint paper was written in the wake of Persian Gulf War One dominance and dovetail perfectly with the traditional Chinese warfighting mindset in the form of Sun Tsu.

At the time(1999), China's military was nothing short of being completely incapable of even regional external utility just 20 years following their dismal results in Northern Vietnam and just 10 years since the existential close call at Tiananmen(and nationwide).

What's important for everyone to realise that the PLA's singular purpose is almost US 2nd Amendment like.

But instead of being codified to deter tyranny, PLA exists for the purpose of deterring adversaries of the CCP(not China, the CCP) and achieving its political objectives, primarily thru a very broad definition of political warfare.

One cannot look at the CCP/PLA as well as its complete integration with BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei) with the same lens as the US government, the US Military, and FAANG+.

The US needs to develop a strategy to counter it.

And that strategy needs to include strong personal freedom & privacy at its core, surrounded by a coordinated effort to competitively dominate global digital domains, and a partial return to the '50s/60s policy of exporting the US as a beacon(as with its fundamental embassy architecture around the world) as opposed to exporting the US as a Borg-like bunker(again, just look at recent US embassy architecture).

I've been published extensively on this topic, generally and specifically, with more in the pipeline.

The Chinese have momentum in terms of information operations.

The world seems to be blaming Trump for absolutely everything and his handling of this has been quite poor, even factoring in national/global media 100% out to record every failure and completely ignore the positive.

Trump should get kudos for his consistent voice in deconstructing Chinese globalism, but his approach is too ham-fisted.

In Star Trek VI, a fictional "old Vulcan proverb" says "Only Nixon could go to China".

Perhaps only a Democrat can return us from China.

By that I mean, rebuild the bifurcating majority middle of the United States around a domestic policy that puts US working/middle-class jobs first, while also taking a less kinetic and more nuanced approach to foreign policy that appeals to personal freedom/privacy and further reductions in poverty.

China's One Belt One Road(OB/OR) initiative is possibly the biggest assault on freedom the world has ever seen.

It will create many developing world jobs and reduce poverty, but it will come with digital chains.

Facebook is a horrible cancerous company, but it is ours.

The idea of WeChat exploding out of China and into the developing world as a discrete but increasingly mandatory adjunct to OB/OR is a truly frightening possibility.

China is applying the same tools of coercion as the US and others have used, such as debt-trap diplomacy.

But China's fully integrated CCP/PLA + BATH strategy can apply Moore's & Metcalfe's Laws to geopolitics, with strategic GeoDigital effect.

Example: Kenya owes China money for a railroad to nowhere.

China can easily convince Kenyatta that the Bantu can ensure their continued "democratic" rule like the CCP out to infinity.

By forgiving the loan in exchange for social media considerations that benefit WeChat.

WeChat offers Kenyatta "Moderator" surveillance capabilities under a CCP/PLA "Administrator".

What developing world leader wouldn't take that deal?

And over time the US Dollar is supplanted by a Digital Yuan, while FB Lira is stillborn(for good reason at this stage).

SuperPowers are yesterday, SuperPlatforms are here today and will own tomorrow.

Facebook needs to be decisively brought to heel.

And FAANG+ needs to be weaponised for good & for freedom.

All those back-channel national intelligence deals with old school telco's, Microsoft, and Cisco need to be reborn to accurately build a network of genuine freedom to oppose the growing spread of tyranny.

[bpr]

Re: Payback to China

I'm deeply concerned with the "COVID-19 as bioweapon" conspiracy narrative.

To me, this narrative panders to the ignorant, risks repulsing the majority, and nudges us to the more kinetic slices of war.

I do not believe the CCP/PLA created this...

Thank you for this response, really opens a different perspective on the concept of a "Superpower."

I felt that there was little credence to this being a weapon simply because PRC is not stupid enough to unleash it in a major metropolitan center of their own and then have to lock it down. If it came from Urumqi or the outskirts, then I would think, yeah, they planned this.

[Woodsman]

Re: Payback to China

I'm deeply concerned with the "COVID-19 as bioweapon" conspiracy narrative...

Lake, I'm grateful for your thoughtful response but have to admit some frustration with this style of rhetoric and its tendency to respond to questions that weren't asked. It's the respondent's privilege, of course. This is not a court of inquiry, none here are legal advocates, and all are free to respond (or not) as they please. It is the "cost of admission" for those making the inquiry, as it were.

To be clear, what I asked was your view on a PLA strategy paper and never did I make any claim or inquiry about any particular weapon, conventional or special, and neither did I assign specific responsibility for any act to any actor. Stating what is obvious, that "a case could be made that this outbreak ... fits nicely under this notion of war without limits" as the strategy in question implies is not synonymous with a declaration that the present crisis is in fact that.

And I must also (like Sisyphus, again and again and again) call out this reflexive impulse, now so familiar and natural to those of us who fill the ranks of the professional and managerial classes, to characterize any idea counter (or merely perceived as threatening) to orthodoxy as a "conspiracy theory." Alas, upon hearing it again for the ten thousand time, I inevitably think back to Luke 14:34:

"Salt is good, but if the salt loses its savor, with what will it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, and it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Understanding that this phrase is counter-intellectual because it begins with the conclusion and works backward to the justification rather than simply examining what is known, I cannot will myself to believe that competent intelligence officers conduct themselves in this manner when performing their work, for it would inevitably result in a worthless product; less than worthless, but dangerous inasmuch as it would support disastrous decision making.

Indeed, such an attitude - for having been employed so long an unbroken stretch of time and become so internalized by its practitioners that it has been made an attitude, an artifact of individual psychology, rather than a mere defensive stratagem - when employed by competent persons must therefore be applied to a rational purpose. Specifically, that purpose is not to elucidate but to obfuscate.

And so I tend to dismiss the phrase and the justifications (for here "reasoning" is not operative) bracketing it as a form of camouflage and deception akin to what Winston Churchill once called "a bodyguard of lies" intended to protect some kernel of information (or truth, more broadly) that for reasons unstated (but that might be inferred) is not considered the privilege of those outside the gates.

The phrase itself is so much word salad, inasmuch as any degree of planning requires two or more persons to "conspire" (literally, breathe together) in order to develop a plan, much less see it realized. And even as a defensive stratagem, it is now so shopworn, so enervated, that it has taken on the opposite effect of its original intent as a pejorative putdown employed as a verbal defense mechanism used by those in the service of power to suppress ideas threatening to the interests of power. More importantly, the term is now universally understood by thoughtful persons as a signal to those who identify themselves as allied with such power; at once to flag a dangerous idea and also as an alert to any confederates who might be within sight.

Appreciating all of this as a man of your intellect and experience no doubt does, might we for once in a gesture of common respect and mutual admission of the collective intelligence here at iTulip, dispense with it?

To the question posed, I highlight the actual response here:

"After Persian Gulf War One, it became crystal clear to every US adversary that it would be futile to oppose the US conventionally/kinetically.

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui's joint paper was written in the wake of Persian Gulf War One dominance and dovetail perfectly with the traditional Chinese warfighting mindset in the form of Sun Tsu.

At the time(1999), China's military was nothing short of being completely incapable of even regional external utility just 20 years following their dismal results in Northern Vietnam and just 10 years since the existential close call at Tiananmen(and nationwide).

What's important for everyone to realise that the PLA's singular purpose is almost US 2nd Amendment like.

But instead of being codified to deter tyranny, PLA exists for the purpose of deterring adversaries of the CCP(not China, the CCP) and achieving its political objectives, primarily thru a very broad definition of political warfare.

One cannot look at the CCP/PLA as well as its complete integration with BATH(Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and Huawei) with the same lens as the US government, the US Military, and FAANG+.

The US needs to develop a strategy to counter it.

And that strategy needs to include strong personal freedom & privacy at its core, surrounded by a coordinated effort to competitively dominate global digital domains, and a partial return to the '50s/60s policy of exporting the US as a beacon(as with its fundamental embassy architecture around the world) as opposed to exporting the US as a Borg-like bunker (again, just look at recent US embassy architecture)."

I too share the opinion that a shooting war between the West and China would be a disaster for all involved. The CCP is no more willing to surrender what it considers its hard-earned prerogatives as a ruling class than any other ruling class across the globe. And should it feel that its back is against the wall, it has every incentive to overturn the chessboard using its small but nonetheless significant nuclear arsenal so as to give its opponents a Pyrrhic victory. I suggest, as you, that countering the Red Chinese leadership begins with open and rational internal dialogue regarding the debasement of our democracy and the material well-being of our people and that must inevitably lead us to identify the cohort who decided on such a deviation from normalcy in the first place.

The CCP, for all its many faults, understands that its power rest ultimately in the hands of the Chinese people. While they are entirely comfortable using subterfuge, propaganda, and terror to suppress dissent, they are keenly aware that this rifleshot will soon run out of bullets when confronted by a mass of ever poorer, ever deprived citizens. To maintain power, the CCP understands the imperative of maintaining an ever increasing standard of living for the mass of its citizens. It might be that a plurality in our ruling class are themselves re-examining the ideas and principles that have guided their actions across the last three decades to their immense profit and the immense misery of those they rule.

As for your prescription:

"Perhaps only a Democrat can return us from China. By that I mean, rebuild the bifurcating majority middle of the United States around a domestic policy that puts US working/middle-class jobs first, while also taking a less kinetic and more nuanced approach to foreign policy that appeals to personal freedom/privacy and further reductions in poverty."

For this to occur, we would need a time machine that would enable us to summon the Democratic Party before the rise of Clintonism (or perhaps earlier still) for its present iteration has long since abandoned the middle and working classes and view appeals to personal freedom and privacy as a punch line. All the "back-channel national intelligence deals with old school telco's, Microsoft, and Cisco" you rightfully identified were nurtured by persons allied with the Democratic Party and while deployed by agents of the GOP in the wake of 9/11, they could not have been realized without the support and encouragement of the Democratic Party elite. If we are to "build a network of genuine freedom to oppose the growing spread of tyranny" we must begin with identifying the rightful source of that tyranny here in the homeland. That, in my estimation, begins with the present Democratic Party leadership and donor class, along with its functionaries embedded in their media apparatus. Until they are defeated, genuine freedom remains comatose and on life support.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Payback to China

Lake, I'm grateful for your thoughtful response but have to admit some frustration with this style of rhetoric and its tendency to respond to questions that weren't asked. It's the respondent's privilege, of course. This is not a court of inquiry, none here are legal advocates, and all are free to respond (or not) as they please. It is the "cost of admission" for those making the inquiry, as it were.

To be clear, what I asked was your view on a PLA strategy paper and never did I make any claim or inquiry about any particular weapon, conventional or special, and neither did I assign specific responsibility for any act to any actor. Stating what is obvious, that "a case could be made that this outbreak ... fits nicely under this notion of war without limits" as the strategy in question implies is not synonymous with a declaration that the present crisis is in fact that.

And I must also (like Sisyphus, again and again and again) call out this reflexive impulse, now so familiar and natural to those of us who fill the ranks of the professional and managerial classes, to characterize any idea counter (or merely perceived as threatening) to orthodoxy as a "conspiracy theory." Alas, upon hearing it again for the ten thousand time, I inevitably think back to Luke 14:34:



Understanding that this phrase is counter-intellectual because it begins with the conclusion and works backward to the justification rather than simply examining what is known, I cannot will myself to believe that competent intelligence officers conduct themselves in this manner when performing their work, for it would inevitably result in a worthless product; less than worthless, but dangerous inasmuch as it would support disastrous decision making.

Indeed, such an attitude - for having been employed so long an unbroken stretch of time and become so internalized by its practitioners that it has been made an attitude, an artifact of individual psychology, rather than a mere defensive stratagem - when employed by competent persons must therefore be applied to a rational purpose. Specifically, that purpose is not to elucidate but to obfuscate.

And so I tend to dismiss the phrase and the justifications (for here "reasoning" is not operative) bracketing it as a form of camouflage and deception akin to what Winston Churchill once called "a bodyguard of lies" intended to protect some kernel of information (or truth, more broadly) that for reasons unstated (but that might be inferred) is not considered the privilege of those outside the gates.

The phrase itself is so much word salad, inasmuch as any degree of planning requires two or more persons to "conspire" (literally, breathe together) in order to develop a plan, much less see it realized. And even as a defensive stratagem, it is now so shopworn, so enervated, that it has taken on the opposite effect of its original intent as a pejorative putdown employed as a verbal defense mechanism used by those in the service of power to suppress ideas threatening to the interests of power. More importantly, the term is now universally understood by thoughtful persons as a signal to those who identify themselves as allied with such power; at once to flag a dangerous idea and also as an alert to any confederates who might be within sight.

Appreciating all of this as a man of your intellect and experience no doubt does, might we for once in a gesture of common respect and mutual admission of the collective intelligence here at iTulip, dispense with it?

To the question posed, I highlight the actual response here:



I too share the opinion that a shooting war between the West and China would be a disaster for all involved. The CCP is no more willing to surrender what it considers its hard-earned prerogatives as a ruling class than any other ruling class across the globe. And should it feel that its back is against the wall, it has every incentive to overturn the chessboard using its small but nonetheless significant nuclear arsenal so as to give its opponents a Pyrrhic victory. I suggest, as you, that countering the Red Chinese leadership begins with open and rational internal dialogue regarding the debasement of our democracy and the material well-being of our people and that must inevitably lead us to identify the cohort who decided on such a deviation from normalcy in the first place.

The CCP, for all its many faults, understands that its power rest ultimately in the hands of the Chinese people. While they are entirely comfortable using subterfuge, propaganda, and terror to suppress dissent, they are keenly aware that this rifleshot will soon run out of bullets when confronted by a mass of ever poorer, ever deprived citizens. To maintain power, the CCP understands the imperative of maintaining an ever increasing standard of living for the mass of its citizens. It might be that a plurality in our ruling class are themselves re-examining the ideas and principles that have guided their actions across the last three decades to their immense profit and the immense misery of those they rule.

As for your prescription:



For this to occur, we would need a time machine that would enable us to summon the Democratic Party before the rise of Clintonism (or perhaps earlier still) for its present iteration has long since abandoned the middle and working classes and view appeals to personal freedom and privacy as a punch line. All the "back-channel national intelligence deals with old school telco's, Microsoft, and Cisco" you rightfully identified were nurtured by persons allied with the Democratic Party and while deployed by agents of the GOP in the wake of 9/11, they could not have been realized without the support and encouragement of the Democratic Party elite. If we are to "build a network of genuine freedom to oppose the growing spread of tyranny" we must begin with identifying the rightful source of that tyranny here in the homeland. That, in my estimation, begins with the present Democratic Party leadership and donor class, along with its functionaries embedded in their media apparatus. Until they are defeated, genuine freedom remains comatose and on life support.

At this stage, the evidence to support the narrative of a Chinese bio-weapon is approximately the same as the narrative of a US soldier importing it into China to play ping-pong.

The most effective Active Measures, disinformation, and fake news used by all sides possess slices of truth intentionally mixed in with toxic lies and deflection.

I’m reminded of the countless stories by those who lived behind the Iron Curtain who referenced how effective Voice of America was in shaping their perceptions.

VOA weaponised the truth, while today information is weaponised as active measures, disinformation, and fake news.

This must change.

I agree in principle with the fundamental political rot in the US, but tend to take the view of a jaded sports fan who recognises the teams and players have more in common with each other, than the partisan sports team divide they foment.

The 2016 election meddling was real, but it was also financially insignificant. If the US can be disrupted for circa $1 million dollars, then it says more about the poor health and wellbeing of the US than it does Active Measures for the Information Age.

A lush, healthy forest will not burn. But an unhealthy and dry forest can be easily torched.

I’m truly saddened by Hong Kong’s epic protests falling off the global radar.

The potential is there for it to represent a CCP/PLA West Berlin.

I do not believe the US and the West have the time to consecutively get their domestic houses in order before countering CCP/PLA expansionism.

They must act concurrently.

And the CCP/PLA will respond to strength.

One of Reagan’s most effective and least known successes was the multi-decade pause on Soviet pipelines to supply NATO countries suffering under a serious recession.

It could have fractured NATO.

It luckily didn’t.

Reagan was right, as those pipelines eventually were completed and now Russia maintains influence and income over Western Europe.

We need to signal strength to China and counter their OB/OR with an alternative that remains to be seen, probably trust/truth, which is in dangerously short supply.

While we concurrently experience a schizophrenic national political version of the Kubler-Ross 5 stages of grief.

[Woodsman]

Re: Payback to China

The Children are on their Own.


Something in the energy shifted.

I can't explain it.

I feel different today.

I realize something unsettling.

I realize that America will never be the same.

Our American media ran Chinese propaganda.

Our academics, secure in their tenure and salary.

Said nothing while hourly staff were fired.

Governors, mayors, the President, all unprepared.

Every institution's legitimacy dead.

Or circling the rim.

The media got it wrong.

And blamed Trump.

Who himself was wrong.

And the governors.

Who themselves were wrong.

All did the same.

What should have united us.

Revealed something.

Something else.

The Poison Crown showed us.

This nation is fractured.

And does not belong to us.

It was sold to the Chinese Communist Party.

By its agents.

By the corporations.

By the media.

By the Congress.

By the White House.

The children are in charge.

In charge of the children.

In charge of the household.

In charge of the country.

In charge of the corporations.

Shifting blame and deflecting responsibility.

It wasn't me.

Said the corporations who took Red Chinese money.

Said the politicians who took Red Chinese propaganda.

Who blamed the mayors.

Who blamed the governors.

Who blamed the President.

Who blamed the Congress.

Who blamed the people.

The children are in charge.

The adults have left us alone.

Without supervision.

We cannot trust Mom and Dad.

Because Mom and Dad.

Never grew up.

The children are on their own.

[Mega]

Re: Payback to China

[Woodsman]

Re: Payback to China

共产党这个邪恶的政权必须灭亡，
中国人被奴役了70年，
现在它已经威胁到整个人类的生存，
这一切该结束了。

[Mega]

Re: Payback to China

Many years ago I knew a guy called "Kenny".
British mum American father, lived a good life of traveling back & forth from LA to Liverpool......

He show up even so often with a new HOT girlfriend.......one day we talking & I ask just how he did it?

"Well am an assistant script ed Mike"
"You are?"
"well that's what I tell them" Big smile on his face
"Don't they sus you?"
"Mike, I know a hell of a lot of people, I can get on film sets no trouble....all I have to do get a girl I know to start chatting about me in front of a lot of want-2-be actress types".........."Pay joe to act as a sort of Madam for me & then they want to know baby!"

"They...er"
"Mike, you don't understand.....THEY WANT TO BELIEVE "......if someone wants to believe its not hard to convince them you the real thing!

This is what happened with China, we wanted to believe that they were just like us & the CCP would just roll over & die......

[Mega]

Re: Payback to China

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ies-facts.html


From Jim Rickards:-
"China is a ruthless, murderous society, that’s lost its place in what’s left of globalisation”

[Chris Coles]

Re: Payback to China

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ies-facts.html


From Jim Rickards:-
"China is a ruthless, murderous society, that’s lost its place in what’s left of globalisation”

That does a gross disservice to the ordinary Chinese people; certainly those that I have met.

[jpatter666]

Re: Payback to China

That does a gross disservice to the ordinary Chinese people; certainly those that I have met.

I think by "China" it's meant "CCP"

Not unusual, travelling through Southeast Asia the number of times I heard "we love Americans, but hate your government...."

[Woodsman]

Re: Payback to China

I think by "China" it's meant "CCP"

Not unusual, travelling through Southeast Asia the number of times I heard "we love Americans, but hate your government...."

Curiously enough, a majority of Americans hold the exact same opinion!

Americans hate the U.S. government more than ever

By Aimee Picchi

January 26, 2016 / 12:01 AM / MoneyWatch

A handful of industries are those "love to hate" types of businesses, such as cable-television companies and Internet service providers.

The federal government has joined the ranks of the bottom-of-the-barrel industries, according to a new survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Americans' satisfaction level in dealing with federal agencies --everything from Treasury to Homeland Security -- has fallen for a third consecutive year, reaching an eight-year low.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/america...ore-than-ever/

---

Americans have grown to really, really hate their government
Catherine Rampell
September 23, 2015 at 12:33 PM EDT

Don’t expect many Americans to shed a tear if there’s a shutdown next week. Turns out in recent years Americans have grown to really, really hate their government. Pretty much everything about it.

But especially so when the other party is in the White House.

Gallup has run several missives recently on public views of government, and the results are ugly. Here’s one finding, showing that about half of Americans now think the federal government poses an “immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.” That’s the highest share since Gallup first asked the question 12 years ago (tied with the share in 2011).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ir-government/

[Mega]

Re: Payback to China