Russia is sure to lose in Ukraine, reckons a Chinese expert on Russia

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/04/11/russia-is-sure-to-lose-in-ukraine-reckons-a-chinese-expert-on-russia?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0ZsOH8II6xYknVy2OYa6cl7t9SYtvmuf-vo3BOo6jARawFZUEEWvGYaoM_aem_AZd_UQ00dH6N9RT_7o1Rtb9fu2uuup5M8y7h_R4lMKXfSuiSMaKpd0qPoo2utca7IzxuruIJ1Q4KXko-yH6aIkVb

 

Excellent article! Thank you so much for posting! Also, Steve, thank you for posting the alternative link.

 

Very interesting article.
I'm surprised it wasn't censored by CCP, coming from a professor at Peking University.

 

Strictly business (and partly show business, I think.) China wants to rationalize their large oil purchases from Russia, as a "good thing" for those in the free world. If China shunned Russian oil, the article suggests it would cause sharp price rises to all other oil importing nations.

"Timeo Sinas et dona ferentes." The original, 2000 years ago, was "Timeo Graecos et dona ferentes." (I fear Greeks, even bearing gifts.) My new version is "I fear Chinese, etc.") Yes, the Romans had a word for the people of far-away China. I'm sure Ancient China had a word for them, too. "Imperialists," probably. Rightly so, back then.

 

Right. I think the prevailing Chinese viewpoint was "Those Romans buy stuff from us - stuff they don't know how to make themselves. (e.g. silk) Good business. Let's not ever show them how. Now, those danged barbarians next door -- the Xiongnu -- they're bad hombres. We gotta build a Wall."
And so they did. Nil sub sole novum.

 

Certainly. I was surprised to find (today) that the Chinese were "Flat-Earthers" till the 17th century, when they learned otherwise from Westerners (Jesuit missionaries). Then again, we in the West still have a few "Flat-Earthers" now... don't we? Or am I mixing them up with Young Earth Creationists?

Nope. I guess I'm not. They're here:
https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/
Scientific American weighs in here:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/flat-earthers-what-they-believe-and-why/

 

The Scientific American article was a fun read. Thanks for posting.

 

Hm. Interesting. As a side note, I'm entranced that the school is still called "Peking" University, at least in English language publications.

 

That's because they're exceptionally resistant to change, I guess. "Peking" was how it was transliterated in the long-defunct Wade-Giles phonetic system of Mandarin pronunciation, for foreign speakers. That system dated back to the mid-19th century.

The "new" system, Hanyu Pinyin was officially adopted in the late 1950s. It's the one I learned from in college in the early 1990s. It became official for use in Mainland China in 1958. I guess it wasn't mandatory. Funny - I thought just about everything from birth to death was mandatory in China.

Just found out. Despite its official adoption, the Chinese government did not actively promote the use of Pinyin until 1979. The New York Times first used "Beijing" in 1986 and most American media followed soon after.

 

I think any form of printed transliteration of Mandarin will always be deficient. You have to HEAR Chinese people speak it. It's the only way to hear it - especially the tones, for me. Same with any language - hear native speakers. Anything less is artificial at best. Practically hopeless with tonal languages like Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai and many African languages, particularly in the Niger-Congo spectrum.

Example: The three principal Native languages of Nigeria - Igbo Hausa and Yoruba - are all tonal.

 

180,000 RMB for international LL.M. students to study Chinese law. Not cheap but not out of line, either. Taught entirely in English.

Interesting note. The application process includes a determination whether ethnic Chinese applicants might be Chinese citizens. If the University (or somebody) decides the applicant is a citizen, the application is automatically denied.

 

If I were to do this, and I weren’t nearly 70 years old, I'd probably study in Hong Kong instead of Beijing.

 

The University of Washington in Seattle offers an LL.M in Asian Law and I think they will give you a PhD if you stick around long enough. The irony is that Washington requires, or used to require, fluency in one or more Asian languages. Peking doesn't seem to think that's important?

 

Even if I was 25, I wouldn't study in either - both places have AWFUL jails. And Canadians (and others) can be detained in them for no (real) reason - at Xi's pleasure. There have been so many cases over the years .... and so much time has been spent by the Canadian Government to repatriate its citizens - some of whom were guilty of something - many who were not.

There appears to be a special vendetta against Uighurs with Canadian citizenship. There have been a kidnappings by Chinese agents - from countries outside China - and sending these people, sometimes to jail and sometimes to the same Uighur "retraining" camps they have a million or so people incarcerated in at present. After protracted negotiations, these Canadians usually wind up back home.

@nosborne48 If I'm going to be imprisoned, I'll take a nice warm New Mexican juzgado. A few months might improve my Spanish.

 

Final stray note: That business about determining nationality illustrates something people need to understand. Nationally usually isn't voluntary. Surrendering one's birth nationality requires the consent of the birth State just as much as acquiring a new nationality requires the consent of one's new State. Finally, a national owes certain duties to the State of nationality even if he or she is unaware of the relationship.

If the PRC declares that all ethnic Chinese in a given foreign territory are Chinese nationals, the State is within its rights to treat those Chinese as citizens the instant those individuals are physically present in China.

 

Around here, we say 'càrcel' rather than 'juzgado'.

 

Google says 'juzgado' means court but we say 'corte'.