Iran did fought a war in 1980s and that pretty much finish off the country. that time country was barely 40m. recovering from a 8 year war with small population is not easy especially when Iran didnot learn from Soviet Union the last real great power to challenge Gulf Monarchies / Jews or China that had to make deal with US in 1970s.
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- Thread starter bd popeye
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Lethe
Captain
I mean, that just isn't true. Nearly 374,000 people attended at the Melbourne Cricket Ground across the five days of the fourth test alone, with a total of across the five test series, and it has been front page news most every day of play. The only real competition in the domestic sporting landscape at the moment is the Big Bash League, which is just another variety of cricket. Cricket is part of the cultural wallpaper for Australia's Christmas-New Year holiday period, the Boxing Day test in particular. Relatively few people are deeply invested in the game, but it's great watercooler conversation material. I enjoyed this recent cartoon on the subject:
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The issue is not being multi ethnic. There are secular ways to keep multiple ethnicities unified. China, Vietnam, and the US are all multi ethnic but they managed just fine with secular policies and economic development. The argument of ethnic homogeneity was more powerful when Japan and South Korea were the only examples of successful first world countries that weren’t white but barely registers today.
I’m in the camp of the main reason being Western sanctions and sabotage; and failure to secure the country from it. On the sanctions front, China was a bit fortunate in being so large & populated that the West could not resist its own greed to keep up the embargo. It’s also a kind of right place, right time situation as the US was so full of itself after the “end of history” that it fell right into Deng’s “hide your strength & bide your time” strategy. Iran was neither big enough nor fortunate enough to be able to establish that sort of freedom window from sanctions.
On the intelligence front, Iran is ultimately a deeply compromised society and was targeted by 50+ years of intelligence operations that proved to be very successful. Iranian leaders who were competent and courageous were regularly targeted for assassination and removal, while the percentage of cowards, sycophants, and collaborators in the government increased. If this had happened in China it would similarly be in deep **** - imagine if China’s top leaders & generals were constantly hiding in bunkers and were still regularly “disappearing” in “random” locations plane/car crashes. It wouldn’t be able to govern.
The bigger question is how China was able to avoid such a fate despite being a similarly major target for the CIA. The answer is probably along the lines of superior counter intelligence capabilities combined with an - in retrospect wise - commitment to early totalitarianism.
I remember being younger and buying into the Western propaganda that China is a horrible oppressive country because of how totalitarian CCP control was; but in reality that was the West expressing its frustration at not being able to influence & take control of Chinese society through its usual intelligence channels. If China had “liberalized” its media and social networks, it is almost certain it’d be just as compromised as Iran today.
Even as it is, there were still close calls. The Tibetan rebellion in 1959 and 2008, Tiananmen in 1989, the “umbrella revolution” in 2014, the Uyghur uprising in 2009, the Falun Gong crack down in 1999, and even Jack Ma’s attempted financial coup in 2022. I’m sure Western intelligence had a hand in each one of these incidents, whether as instigator, planner, or just operational & political support. That was the price of “opening up” one’s country to foreign influence & investment. But where China took the blows, maintained internal cohesion, & kept going, Iran buckled and lost its most effective leaders like Solemaini and possibly Raisi. In the end, that sealed its fate.
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Ukraine (Zelenski and Israel separate deal) was saved by Arabs through the grain deal. that grain deal is the protection of Ukranian land. US officials can blame countries like India for oil trade but not the one who facilitated it.
Coming from a malnourished looking CBG officer looking more like a "Lé Búm"
The China of US public consciousness is that of Great Leap Forward China, not the China of today. It's one of the worst cases of mass delusion that the world has ever seen.
It’s not hard, any big city in US/Canada has homeless encampments in any big park. The people there have massive substance abuse problems and somehow no one has a solution. People can’t even take their kids out. The new trend amongst teenagers seems to be mob smash and grabs, basically a looting society.
Meanwhile, anyone who goes to China, so is interested in China even remotely sees high speed trains everywhere, clean looking cities, etc. Even if it is 90% fake, it’s still 10% better than what is going on in North America.
This is what happens when your media manufactures so much consent around "China bad" that it no longer knows how to portray reality.
Control of the media is key to Western power over its own population; and also, of Western influence over the world at large.
Countries that allow Western media free reign become puppets to their power.
This is not widely known because, guess what makes a topic widely known? The media.
China's strict lock down on Western influence - made possible by its totalitarian media controls - was critical to avoiding this fate.