OPINION: Imagine it was someone other than President Donald Trump. Suppose a different leader were posting deranged rants in the small hours, insulting the spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics, threatening entire civilizations with annihilation, and comparing himself to God. What would be the reaction?
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China is making future technology for a better life!
A touching moment at Canton Fair!
A lady from Europe, who has long struggled with knee issues and could barely stand or walk on her own, took steady steps with a Chinese exoskeleton.
Her friend wept tears of joy.
At the Canton Fair, a foreign woman with lower-body disabilities stood and walked on her own using a Chinese exoskeleton. Her family was moved to tears.
Technology is for people, not for show.
The comedian was left speechless when the Swedish King left him hanging by refusing to take his hand.
Rumours that the King dislikes the little actor and was unhappy to be sent by the Governeknt to Kiev, seem to be true.
The sanctions playbook was rehearsed on Vietnam.
After the war, the U.S. blocked Vietnam from the IMF, the World Bank, and virtually every major international financial institution.
It maintained a trade embargo that isolated the Vietnamese economy for two decades.
It pressured other countries to cut ties.
It tried to build an economic wall around a country that had just survived a military one.
The logic was the same logic it always is:
If we can't destroy you with bombs, we'll destroy you with poverty.
Make the economy scream.
Make ordinary people suffer until they associate their suffering with their government's independence rather than with the foreign power squeezing them.
Wait for collapse.
Wait for desperation.
Wait for the next coup, the next "color revolution," the next government that will finally do what Washington wants.
They waited for twenty years.
Vietnam didn't collapse.
It didn't beg.
It reformed on its own terms, through its own process, at its own pace.
It eventually normalized relations, not because it surrendered, but because it was strong enough that America eventually decided engagement served its interests better than isolation.
Vietnam outlasted the embargo.
The same country that outlasted B-52s outlasted economic strangulation.
Every nation currently living under American sanctions should study the Vietnamese experience.
Not as a perfect model, nothing is, but as proof that the embargo is not a death sentence.
It is a test of endurance.
And some peoples are very, very good at endurance.
China has pressed the start button on what is believed to be the world’s longest outdoor escalator system on the steep banks of the Yangtze River, in a mountainous region known for pushing the bounds of architecture. https://t.co/xZFHwVXyqP
Vietnamese have a national confidence that is virtually unmatched.
They know they're poor.
They know they're a small fish in a big pond.
But they also know that they're WINNERS.
They freed themselves from 1000 years Chinese rule.
They threw out the French.
They threw out the Americans.
Recent history is a series of Ws.
Undefeated.
And that shapes the spirit.
>Taiwan? They're just White ass kissers.
>Japan? Got nuked into submission.
>Germany? Besatzungsgebiet.
>China? Still recovering from 100 years of humiliation.
>Britain? Their transformation from bulldog into chihuahua is unprecedented.
>Russia? Still recovering from the fall of the Sovietunion.
>America? They're the OG champs of this century, but Fall of Saigon, 9/11, Afghanistan, rise of China etc exposed huge cracks in their shiny armor
>Switzerland? They never participated in the game. 0-0 record.
>Philippines... dunno, have they ever had a W throughout their history actually???
Sorry if I'm being ignorant...
A French man wanted to see how quickly a laptop would be stolen if left in public in different countries!
In 🇮🇹 Italy, it was gone in 11 seconds! In 🇫🇷 France, it took 14 seconds! In the 🇬🇧 UK, it lasted 33 seconds!
But when he tried this in 🇨🇳 China, what happened shocked him!
“Chinese and Vietnamese people can’t protest. They don't have free speech."
Wrong.
They can.
They just don’t protest frivolously.
In one-party socialist systems, protest has weight. It happens when there is real collective agreement that something has failed. The bar is higher because the cost is real.
Contrast this with liberal democracies, where division is constant and protest is cheap. Everyone is always angry, but RARELY TOGETHER. Dissent becomes routine, fragmented, and easily absorbed. Power disperses responsibility across institutions, parties, and private interests, so failure belongs to no one in particular.
You are free to protest endlessly, yet NOTHING is forced to change.
More importantly, in China and Vietnam, accountability is clear.
Power is centralized. When policy fails, people know exactly who governs and who answers. There is no confusion about responsibility.
In liberal democracies, power is scattered. Politicians, courts, corporations, donors, media, and capital all share influence. You’re free to protest, but no one is clearly responsible when nothing changes.
You get noise without consequence.
Freedom without accountability.
Outrage that circulates and expires.
So yes, liberal systems allow more complaining.
But complaining is not power.
And shouting is not control.
If your defense of democracy is “at least we can protest,” that’s not a flex, baby girl. 🤭