HubblePhone

The Phone Reinvented

[HubblePhone @hubblephone]

Be one of the very first people to own a HubblePhone. Here's how: https://t.co/VWkQ3zjvrd #HubblePhone #Turing #smartphone #mobilephone #mobile #turingphone #tech #technews #techblogger #cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #Etherium #Litecoin #Dash #NEO #cryptocoins

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

THE GOOD NEWS is that China’s world-beating clean energy success stories (cars, batteries, solar panels) are clearly positive news for everyone, macroeconomists say. But the bad news is that benefits will be negated by the needs of western politics, it was reported today.

“For most of the macroeconomics profession, allowing China to pioneer clean energy technologies will only lower the cost of batteries and clean cars, creating a disinflationary force and speeding up emissions reduction in rich and poor countries,” said Mehreen Khan (pictured) in the Times of London today.

“Everyone should be a winner, in theory.”

But don’t celebrate too soon. The potential benefits will be undercut by “the domestic political, social and geopolitical consequences of letting the market rip,” she added.

Thus we see US tariffs being added to make cheap, affordable products expensive and unaffordable, to protect US workers being hit by a “China shock”. The EU may follow suit—making it harder for its own citizens to buy green products.
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CHOOSE TWO OUT OF THREE
Western governments want to do three things, but can’t do them all at once: maintain free and open trade, keep inflation low, and achieve net zero targets.

“The US has moved decisively to dump free trade to help it achieve the other two,” wrote Ms Khan. Bye bye, gas-free cars and cheap solar panels.

Now the question is whether the European Union will make the same decision, she asked. Free trade, the environment or inflation control?

It is interesting that the issue is raised by Ms Khan, economics editor of the right-wing Murdoch-owned newspaper, a writer who normally follows US State Dept lines. Meanwhile, other economists have argued that two of the goals -- free trade AND the environment -- are being abandoned for political goals.

This and other recent essays by economists show that the usual US excuses – “China probably bugged this product”, “Chinese products are made by slaves” – are being increasingly ditched in favor of telling the truth: the capitalist west is increasingly being stymied by its own politics.

Result: Everyone loses.

[Nury Vittachi @NuryVittachi]

CHINA’S BYD SET TO BUILD ICONIC LONDON BUSES
The iconic red London double-decker bus is about to be refreshed with a new fleet - from miracle Shenzhen firm BYD.

The fast-rising Chinese company is about to be awarded a contract to build more than 100 all-electric double-deckers for the UK capital, the Sunday Times reported yesterday.

The deal is a result of a stellar proposal from the Chinese team, which said that it could provide well-designed, all-electric, zero-emission double-deckers for GBP400,000 each, GBP100,000 cheaper than local competitors.

“It is the first time that BYD has won a contract to provide EV double-deckers in the UK, pipping local competitors such as Alexander Dennis,” the paper says.
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DEAL CRITICIZED
The Sunday Times writes sourly about the deal, pushing the line that green energy businesses in China received government subsidies – as if they didn’t in western countries.

The paper also pushed the line that BYD vehicles may be partly made by slave labor, adopting a US propaganda line about workers in Xinjiang, in the far northwest of China. However, BYD is based in Shenzhen, in the southeast of China—about as far away from unfairly maligned Xinjiang as you can get.
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FIGHT FOR TRUTH
The Sunday Times also omits the fact that BYD already has a successful UK operation in which it partners with UK bus company Alexander Dennis. Instead it quotes notorious Sinophobe Iain Duncan Smith saying the buses should be made by British or European firms.

BYD has a long record of successfully producing public transport vehicles in multiple countries.

Whether the latest deal will finally go through will of course depend on whether London Mayor Sadiq Khan and his team opt to go for truth – or be diverted by the western media’s relentless anti-China propaganda.
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[HubblePhone @hubblephone]

@RichardSHeggie Great list. I'm now following you.

[S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030]

Free Speech platform X suspends the account of the grandson of Nelson Mandela! @mandlamandela

His crime? Trying to deliver food to the starving people in Gaza.

Just unbelievable…

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

People don't realize just how dangerous this rhetoric is. This is in effect the US demanding China become hostile to Russia by stopping to supply items that "power its industrial base"... meaning asking China to join the West in trying to weaken Russia as a country.

As a reminder this is exactly the reason why during WW2 Japan went to war with the US: the US at some point stopped supplying oil to Japan and this directly led to Pearl Harbor. Countries typically don't take it very constructively when you're trying to strangle them economically...

The worst part is that the only rational they give China for doing this is 100% stick and 0% carrot: "if you don't do this we in turn will be even more aggressive towards you than we've been to date". With of course, in the back of China's mind the knowledge that the US's calculus is that they want to be done with Russia in order to fully concentrate on containing them.

So they're presenting China with a completely lose-lose proposition: be hostile to your neighbor now so we can contain you faster down the line, or don't be hostile to your neighbor and we'll ramp up our containment now. How attractive is that? 🙃

China will of course not start being hostile to Russia, in fact if anything this will convince them that the US is even more unhinged and unreasonable that they thought.

It's very hard to predict what they'll do... An ideal scenario for China would be to secure peace in Ukraine on terms that are agreeable to all except the US, weakens the transatlantic alliance and unites Eurasia. By the way, objectively speaking this would also be the best scenario for Europe's interests because it stands to reason that a long-term Korea-style divide with Russia would be a complete disaster. President Xi is going to Europe shortly and I am ready to bet he'll argue for something along these lines. But the thing is that he'll be speaking to Europeans who, if anything, are even less reasonable than Americans so I don't think we can be very optimistic about that prospect...

The more realistic scenario is that China does nothing and reacts to additional hostile measures against it in ways that weaken the US more than it weakens them. Some sort of Kung Fu move where you use your opponent's strength against them. For instance the US floated the idea of expelling Chinese banks from the global financial system: China, the biggest trading partner of almost all countries, can then say "from now on to trade with us, you need to use our system", which would be a big blow to the US dollar's status as the world's preeminent currency.

All in all, we're well and truly in Cold War 2, which is pretty sad. Just like WW1 was really different from WW2, Cold War 2 is different from the first one: this time it's not an ideological competition between 2 blocs, but it is still a war in all respects except a direct military fight between the world's 2 largest great powers, which is what makes it a cold war.

The key cause is because the US cannot bear to lose its global hegemony and wants to restore a unipolar order where they call the shots and try to transform the world in their own image... which is the very reason why it's a 100% certainty they won't succeed: to win a cold war you need to convince a significant share of the world that your cause is worthy and this is anything but. The whole world saw what happens when the US achieves unipolarity: insane hubris where they don't hesitate to destroy entire nations and kill millions in the process. No-one wants to get back to that, except maybe a few die-hard vassals in the West.

China's cause on the other hand is a multipolar world order, an order where the US simply doesn't call the shots, something a good 80% of the world's countries can get behind. Furthermore China can point to 1,800 years out of the past 2,000 years when it was the world's preeminent power and never tried to submit the whole world: colonialism, transforming the world in their own image or being "the world's policeman" is just not in their DNA.

So I think we can safely predict that this transition towards a multipolar world order is unavoidable, in fact we're probably already there. The question now is when will the US stop challenging this reality and start being a constructive actor in this new world as opposed to waging war and sowing conflict everywhere. And I'm afraid we can wait a long time for that... In fact it's already a de-facto characteristic of the new order: it's a multipolar world order with a revisionist power in its midst that wants to restore its former hegemonic imperial status.

[HubblePhone @hubblephone]

@AndyBxxx Congratulations, Andy. I just hit 800,000 in 6 weeks time with only 6 videos posted. I'm predicting I reach 1M before Chinese New Year. Maybe you'll reach it before me. 😎

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

This FT article on "How China is tearing down Islam" (https://t.co/bSgz2J8fWc) is one of the most dishonest pieces of "journalism" I've seen on China this year.

First of all, the timing of the article is absolutely fascinating. Just when the West is facilitating yet another large-scale massacre of Muslims civilians they want your attention drawn to China rearranging the architectural features of some mosques to make them look more Chinese... which they present as some sort of evil genocidal project.

Let's go into the accusations here. They denounce "a widespread policy of stripping buildings of Arabic features, and in some cases replacing them with traditional Chinese designs" and present this as "Beijing’s suppression of Islamic culture" (and ultimately, as the title of the article says, a supposed Chinese project to "tear down Islam").

Do pay attention to the false synonym they're trying to create between "Arabic features" and "Islamic culture" or "Islam" wholesale. This is why the article is so profoundly dishonest: it seeks to mislead readers by equating Islam with Arabic culture and architecture, when both are just completely different things.

It is true and undeniable that China has renovated many mosques in the past few years to remove typically Arabic architectural features and make the mosques look more traditionally Chinese. But in no universe can one equate this with "tearing down Islam".

As a matter of fact, Islam in China has roots dating back to the seventh century - less than twenty years after the death of Muhammad - making it one of the countries on earth with the oldest Islamic tradition. In fact Islam reached China at about the same time as it did North Africa. So China is as familiar with Islam as just about most Muslim countries: in fact Islam reached China some 600 years before it did Indonesia, which is today the largest Muslim country on earth. And some of China's most celebrated historical figures - such as the famous explorer and diplomat Zheng He - were Muslims.

Arabic features on mosques in China is however an extremely recent phenomenon, which the article itself actually acknowledges: “In the 1980s, during Deng Xiaoping’s liberal era, a new mosque-building boom began, marked by a fashion for domed prayer halls and tall, slender minarets”. Before this, mosques in China looked very... Chinese, unsurprisingly! For proof please check this website of "Historical Photographs of China" made in partnership between the University of Bristol and the British Academy, these are the pictures tagged "mosques": https://t.co/YILFZWAG5b You can't find a single Arabic-style mosque here, from those photos taken in the 19th and early 20th century, all the mosques look positively Chinese.

So far from "tearing down Islam", what this renovation initiative is actually doing is restoring China's Islam, embracing the fact that Islam is a religion that's been part of China for some 1,300 odd years and reflecting this in the architecture. What China is doing is ensuring that it isn't "Islam in China" but "Islam of China", in other words they're trying to preserve a Muslim identity that is not deterritorialized nor deculturalized but very much local. It's like Chinese Buddhism: by embracing Buddhism and making it part of Chinese culture, China didn't "tear down Buddhism".

Doing this is "tearing down Islam" only if you see Islam as a purely foreign political project, which it very much isn't. Seeing it like that actually reflects a very biased and malign understanding of Islam, which sadly doesn't surprise me coming from Western media... If you present Islam as an Arabic project, you present it as foreign, as some sort of invading force, instead of a religion which is universal and which all people can make their own, which is exactly what China is doing here. This article therefore achieves the feat of both slandering China and Islam, whilst trying to gaslight readers into believing it is China that's "tearing down Islam". The truth is that they misrepresent what Islam is and therefore metaphorically tear it down much more than what China does.

This is also, by the way, why no Muslim country ever expresses any issue with what China is doing with regards to Islam - on the contrary, they overwhelmingly support it. And why you only ever see criticism from Western countries who don't understand the first thing about the religion, or about China.

[Jason Smith - 上官杰文 @ShangguanJiewen]

The UK colonized much of the world, killing and looting its way to wealth.

France colonized much of Africa, killing and looting its way to wealth.

Spain colonized much of the Americas, killing and looting its way to wealth.

The US is still colonizing much of the world, killing and looting its way to wealth.

China rose to wealth peacefully, without invading other nations. It instead chose win-win diplomacy and mutually beneficial business deals, helping itself rise to success while helping develop its global partners.

China has given the world a model of how to rise peacefully. It's worth us learning more about how it is doing so, so we can end the cycle imperialism.

#China #peace

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

So Musk's line is essentially: "physically eliminate Hamas members and ensure the remaining Palestinians toe the line through reeducation."
https://t.co/w9aZGWGcD7

Straight back to the 19th century...

Funnily enough his exact quote is: "there's no choice but to kill those who insist on murdering civilians". But he only applies it one way, not towards those who killed 20,000 Palestinian civilians...

I'm all for Palestinians and Israelis to live in peace but this is the exact wrong way to go about it. Subjugation and widespread killings is what LED US HERE. Two weeks ago a wise man said that what Israel was doing was creating more Hamas members than it killed and that its whole enterprise was therefore profoundly foolish. His name? Elon Musk.

[Rebecca Chan @RebeccaYChan]

🇨🇳 built a sound economic base for her people for its exponential growth

India’s compradores serve Western interests to enrich themselves n built nothing for the masses. Hence, the stagnation n poverty

🇮🇳 doesn’t need to compete with🇨🇳
🇮🇳 needs to break free from the 🇬🇧🇺🇸Empire

[Jason Smith - 上官杰文 @ShangguanJiewen]

Debts forgiven in total by China under the Belt and Road from 2015 to 2019.

What debt trap?

#BeltandRoad #DebtTrap #China
Source: Johns Hopkins University:
https://t.co/oICgCVqlJF

[Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 @jacksonhinkle]

🚨🇮🇱 Israel DELETED then re-uploaded their Al Shifa hospital video, but only after REMOVING this hilarious clip!

🚨🇮🇱 The same “prisoner” who was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 was somehow caught posting on Facebook and Instagram on October 12!

[S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030]

“Israeli military is only good at beating up 10-year-old boys and 15-year-old girls in West Bank” — Scott Ritter.

😆 It’s true.

Israel is also good at launching missiles at hospitals and schools. But that’s it.

Now they are chickening out about invading Gaza. 🐔

[Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis @DrLoupis]

New York🇺🇸

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

First of all, ironic coming from her...

Secondly, the obvious question is, once a country is home to large communities of people from different cultures, what is the alternative to multiculturalism? You cannot go back in time.

So if you're against multiculturalism you're left with 3 choices, which are all fundamentally violent:
1) Apartheid
2) Cultural genocide, a version of the "kill the Indian, save the man" policies the US or Canada had with their native populations (which often turned out to be "kill the Indian", period)
3) Large scale deportation, which is basically unfeasible

These politicians will obviously call all these by different names ("we're merely attempting to protect 'our' values"), but essentially those are the choices.

This isn't to say that countries home to folks from many different cultures cannot have national identities. Of course they can, and they should. But these national identities need to be shaped in a way that accommodates and compromises with the different cultures in their midst. And that's the key issue in those Western countries: their national identities were shaped by the legacy culture, at a time when they didn't need to accommodate or compromise. And they want to keep these identities (no-one likes to compromise), which is understandable... but to do so we then go back to our 3 choices.

So when it is actually the only wise and humane solution, what you'll hear from these politicians is that accommodating and compromising with "the other side" (even though they're all in the same country...) is an existential threat.

I'm very familiar with this in France where we currently have our Nth national debate on whether we should allow Muslims to wear clothes that... shows they're Muslims. We've had this debate twice so far this year alone! They're currently discussing it because the French government refuses to let Muslim women wear a hijab at the upcoming Paris Olympics. You hear things like: "compromising on this is an existential threat, we shouldn't let THEM win" 🤦

By contrast Singapore is a good example. Maybe because it was created recently as a country and therefore had to think itself as a home to several cultures from the get-go. They roughly have the same percentage of Muslims as France, and they not only allow them to wear whatever they want (except when they have to wear a uniform) but they also celebrate Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha as a national bank holidays and they do the same for important Indian & Chinese holidays. They also have halal food and appropriate places for praying everywhere. That's the "accommodation and compromise" involved and society isn't destroyed for it: on the contrary, everyone feels respected and you have much less tension between communities.

At the end of the day cultures and religions are very deeply rooted things, and unless you adopt extremely violent means which are just incompatible with humane societies, you just cannot magically make them disappear. So your only way is exactly what Singapore is doing: respecting everyone with accommodation and compromise. IMHO that's the only wise way.

[unity 성혁 🇵🇸🇰🇷🇰🇵 @unity_kor]

It’s kind of concerning that ROK citizens are this out of line with the global average with respect to recognizing China’s rising economic status. Something is seriously wrong with the news and media apparatus, I think. This is bordering on delusionally misinformed levels.

[Zhang Heqing @zhang_heqing]

No room for 'Taiwan independence' separatist activities MOFA

[S.L. Kanthan @Kanthan2030]

Huawei distributes billions of dollars of dividends to its employees every year — because ALL employees are also shareholders!

Compare that to USA, where such a thing is unheard of. But this parasitic system of 0.1% and for 0.1% has convinced its people that socialism is bad!

[Jason Smith - 上官杰文 @ShangguanJiewen]

China now produces the most affordable, highest quality electric vehicles in the world.

This curbs global climate change.

The EU has now launched an investigation into China's EV market. The facts are that China has the most well developed and supply and logistics chain in the world.

The EU needs to adopt EVs at the same rate as China and think about climate change instead of lamenting the failure of their automobile industry to innovate and adapt as fast as China's has.

#ClimateCrisis #globalwarming
https://t.co/Moraz6HF1m