Is Huawei Pushing Forward With an Ambitious Plan to Dethrone Android? (forbes.com) 152
Forbes recently published this article by author/speaker Nina Xiang, who reports that Huawei is pushing forward with "an amibitious plan to dethrone Android."
Hundreds of technical experts from many of China's biggest state-owned and private companies, including the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China Telecom, Meituan, and Baidu, all gathered in Beijing last month. The purpose behind the meeting was for their staff to receive training so they could be certified as developers on Huawei's Harmony Operation System (OS).
While most observers were looking the other way, Huawei has been quietly building an independent Chinese operating system that isn't subject to U.S. sanctions. In the four years after the telecom giant was banned from using Google apps, the Shenzhen-based company has been making significant strides toward achieving its long-term goal: To dethrone Android and make its HarmonyOS the default operating system in China.
Looking at the data for smartphone sales in China shows that HarmonyOS had the third-largest share with 10% in the second quarter of 2023, thanks to a strong resurgence in sales of Huawei smartphones. Although it's still well below Android's dominant 72%, it's not far from iOS's 17%... Huawei already says more than 700 million devices (including phones, smart devices, computers, and others) were equipped with HarmonyOS as of August this year, with over 2.2 million developers actively building within the ecosystem...
A key moment will come next year, when Huawei says HarmonyOS will no longer be compatible with Android apps.
While most observers were looking the other way, Huawei has been quietly building an independent Chinese operating system that isn't subject to U.S. sanctions. In the four years after the telecom giant was banned from using Google apps, the Shenzhen-based company has been making significant strides toward achieving its long-term goal: To dethrone Android and make its HarmonyOS the default operating system in China.
Looking at the data for smartphone sales in China shows that HarmonyOS had the third-largest share with 10% in the second quarter of 2023, thanks to a strong resurgence in sales of Huawei smartphones. Although it's still well below Android's dominant 72%, it's not far from iOS's 17%... Huawei already says more than 700 million devices (including phones, smart devices, computers, and others) were equipped with HarmonyOS as of August this year, with over 2.2 million developers actively building within the ecosystem...
A key moment will come next year, when Huawei says HarmonyOS will no longer be compatible with Android apps.
It would be surprising if not (Score:3)
Google has pushed back against China's demands so they have their own app store.
It's a short walk from there to having a different OS, since China will happily ban products or services. They'll just claim Android is spying on everyone, which is probably only true for them in the sense that their localized Android is full of their own government spyware, and that for national security reasons it must be removed.
Re:It would be surprising if not (Score:5, Insightful)
And for the reason you mention in your second paragraph, it's ludicrous for TFS to suggest that a Chinese OS will "dethrone" Android anywhere outside of the CCP's control. No one will be able to trust it, so they will only use it if they are forced to.
Re: (Score:2)
And for the reason you mention in your second paragraph, it's ludicrous for TFS to suggest that a Chinese OS will "dethrone" Android anywhere outside of the CCP's control. No one will be able to trust it, so they will only use it if they are forced to.
Nobody will trust it? That's a bold statement. Have you ever even been in Asia? I don't know about Huawei dethroning Android, I kind of doubt that's going to be very easy. However, Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi and Oppo have massive and steadily growing market share over there (and both have basically forked Android btw.) and all three make pretty damn nice phones at lower prices than even the Koreans. PRC based phone makers have effectively pushed everybody out of the Asian market except Apple and Sams [statcounter.com]
Re:It would be surprising if not (Score:5, Informative)
hysterically paranoid ... about Chinese electronics somehow infecting them with communist cooties
You misspelled "realistically observant of patterns of PRC behavior [csoonline.com]."
The CCP/PRC have a long and aggressive history of attacks not just on other governments, but also against businesses [csis.org] in the realm of corporate [foreignpolicy.com] espionage to steal technology and information [fbi.gov] to be given to Chinese companies (there's no such thing as an "independent" business from the CCP).
We have divided the publicly know incidents into categories of military, political, and commercial espionage, and covert efforts to influence the target nation’s politics. These categories are not hard and fast, since in many cases, an incident showed that Chinese collectors obtained information of both commercial and military value. A few cases reflect what seem to be global campaigns aimed at commercial, military and government targets in many countries and lasting for years. It should be noted that the incidents of Chinese espionage far outnumber those by any other country, even Russia.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
According to Slashdot, you can't trust Android or iOS either. The both rape your privacy, especially Android. Everything you look at, everywhere you go, even things you say in earshot of your phone, all sent to Google and who knows who else.
In which case you are arguably better off with the CCP, since they can't sell the data to US companies, ruin your credit rating, get you swept up in a broad police warrant...
Of course I don't believe that, but the disconnect on Slashdot is interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
The US has already lost the trade war, the Government loves to place trade embargos on other countries for political reasons, how many countries are the Chinese unwilling to trade with?
Australia for one.
They've since scaled back some of the bans, but still not all.
Re: (Score:2)
PRC has no problems trading with Australia on its own terms. It's the same as with everyone else. They're a mercantilist great power.
Australia had a moment when they pissed off political leadership of the CCP. CCP thought they had enough coal from elsewhere to push to punish Australia by dropping importation of Australian coal. They found out they were wrong, as they didn't have enough coal when they stopped importing, because coal is not interchangeable with other coal. There are types of coal, and grades
Re: (Score:2)
You were given an example and even agreed with it...
Re: (Score:2)
>How can you say with a straight face China doesn't punish trade for purely political reasons?
Where and when did I say such a stupid thing?
Re: (Score:2)
Can you not even follow a thread?
Go back and try again. [slashdot.org]
Start with the bit I quoted.
Or not, whatever.
Re: (Score:2)
Part you quoted in that post was never uttered by me. The only reason I replied was because you and the other user you quoted in that post seemed to be talking past one another.
Because it's obviously true that China is a nation where politics take primacy over economic concerns. It's a Communist system after all, so that is given. And it's a Great Power on top of that. But it's not particularly special in the way it applies political power, in fact it's very much in line with what a rising Great Power usual
Re: (Score:2)
So you really couldn't follow the thread.
Post I replied to was trying to contrast America and China. Claiming China wouldn't use trade embargoes as political tools like the US does.
I showed an example of China doing just that. Proving them wrong. (You'll notice they had no comeback for this simple fact.)
You decided to jump in and apparently now agree with me that China does this. While also pretending you were against my point by claiming China doesn't.
What was the point of your post? Other than to show
Re: (Score:2)
My point is that you're both somewhat correct but mostly wrong in your naivete.
>Post I replied to was trying to contrast America and China. Claiming China wouldn't use trade embargoes as political tools like the US does.
Factually, it does not. Consider Cuban embargo as an example. It's purely political, with official goal of regime change. China doesn't actually doesn't care about regimes of foreign entities enough (at this stage of its development at least) to enact such embargoes. This isn't some esote
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, your post isn't related to anything but trying to put words into peoples mouths.
Do you have a quota for how much you need to type as well?
You could have just said. "I don't understand the discussion you were having" And here's my detailed explanation of why. Would have saved us all the bother of reading it.
Do America and China both employ trade embargoes as political policy. Yes. Grandparent was wrong. End of discussion.
Your details and bad attempt at mind reading adds nothing further.
Your attempt
Re: (Score:2)
>Yea, your post isn't related to anything but trying to put words into peoples mouths.
Projection. The only person who did that in this thread was you in your previous post, where you claimed a quote to be mine that was someone else's.
>Do America and China both employ trade embargoes as political policy. Yes. Grandparent was wrong. End of discussion.
Not in any comparable way, no. As explained above. You can be as willfully ignorant as you want about this point with squaring the circle until it's a stra
Re: (Score:2)
Projection. The only person who did that in this thread was you in your previous post, where you claimed a quote to be mine that was someone else's.
Well this is a straight up lie.
It's no wonder you can't follow a thread if you can't even follow a post.
Not in any comparable way, no. As explained above. You can be as willfully ignorant as you want about this point with squaring the circle until it's a straight line, and I'll just continue hammering in the acts..
You're jumping into a discussion you have no idea about. And can't even follow. You're still trying to stick words into other peoples mouths. Pontificating about something you have no knowledge about. As a result your posts are borderline gibberish.
Factually false, as pre-emptively outlined in my previous post in some detail.
You've done no such thing.
Your posts are only tangentially related to the discussion you inserted yourself into. Basically irrelevant even if some small par
Re: (Score:2)
I'm intrigued. How do you square your first claim in this post with your second one?
I am either lying about how this thread started, or I'm jumping into a discussion that I have no idea about. Both can't be true at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
By reading the posts.
Something you should have done from the start.
Claiming now that it's impossible to jump in and be wrong is completely idiotic.
Evidence is the entire thread.
Re: (Score:2)
This establishes that we either differ on linearity of temporal dimension, or basic logic. In either case, we have a fundamental disagreement on how communication can even potentially work.
I wish you all the best. Hoping this at least this message can punch thought the aforementioned block.
Re: (Score:2)
1. Didn't understand what politics was [slashdot.org]
2.Lied about me claiming the quote was yours [slashdot.org]
3.Claimed I was wrong despite agreeing that China's ban was political [slashdot.org]
4. Tried to go off on a tangent about America and Communists [slashdot.org]
5.Lied again about me claiming the quote was yours. [slashdot.org]
6. Refuse to agree with your own post that China's trade is political.
Maybe you'll eventually discover by some other means what 'pol
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone spies - just accept it and pick your master.
Re: (Score:2)
US banned Huawei from using google play package. They can use android just fine.
Android loses popularity in China (Score:2)
Xiaomi is pushing also its own o/s. Wondering whether Google and Samsung will respond to the challenge.
China is a declining market (Score:5, Insightful)
Xiaomi is pushing also its own o/s. Wondering whether Google and Samsung will respond to the challenge.
Should they bother? China's population is in collapse and as things get worse, I would expect more and more of their educated and talented to flee for greener pastures. It's going to be a very long time where anyone would have a reason to buy a Harmony OS phone other than it was the only option available and they were stuck in mainland China.
If I were a mobile device CEO, I would focus on other emerging markets, like India, Latin America, and Africa as well as compete in established markets like Europe/North-America, Australia, etc.
The notion of a market artificially isolated to one country is not new...but to my knowledge, it has never really produced anything as complicated as a mobile OS that could compete with its international peers. For starters, they have no incentive to do a decent job. If Harmony OS is the only game in town, what is motivating them to put effort into both developing new features and more importantly patching existing bugs?...optimistically, all they would do is enough to motivate people to replace their phones. As folks in the software industry know, making software is a lot more expensive than the initial release. You're constantly patching and securing and troubleshooting poorly written vague bug reports. It's expensive and not fun and certainly not for the feint of heart.
It is a shame China can't behave. Everyone's life would be better if they were fully participating in the market instead of building their own technical hermit kingdom for themselves and presumably North Korea.
Re:China is a declining market (Score:4, Insightful)
So you impose sanctions restricting what Chinese companies buy, starting with Xeon CPUs, then semiconductor fab equipment, and now AI chips. You impose sanctions restricting Chinese companies' access to global markets, starting with 5G cellular technology, and becoming increasingly arbitrary. Then when Chinese companies start to build their own technology ecosystem, you complain that "China can't behave".
Seriously, what do you expect to happen? Did you think they wouldn't look for ways to retaliate? Did you think they were buying imported CPUs because they're too stupid to build their own? Do you just not think at all? It's like you believe China should "know their place" and accept the inherent superiority you seem to think you possess.
Re: (Score:2)
The sanctions are for IP theft and generally being scum bags beyond internationally acceptable levels of scumbaggery.
If they cut it out there'd be no sanctions and they'd be welcome as a decent member of the international community.
They're the only major country with zero allies. Unless you count the parasitic North Korean basket case. Why do they have no allies? Because they're so shitty to everyone else they make the other meh options look really good.
They brought it on themselves with their own behavi
Re: (Score:3)
Despite China's catastrophically low fertility rate (1.2 births/woman) and serious sex imbalance in the prime childbearing years, China's population isn't going to *collapse*. It's going to decline very gradually from about 1.4 billion at present to about 1 billion in 2100, assuming nothing else changes. In that year it will still be about 3x the size of the US. We're talking about a 28% reduction in population *over eighty years*, which on a decade to decade basis will feel more like stagnation than col
All of your ideas make it a terrible place to live (Score:3)
As far as your ideas that the
Re: (Score:2)
Should they bother? China's population is in collapse and as things get worse, I would expect more and more of their educated and talented to flee for greener pastures.
Even if their population is in decline, China is big enough that it will remain a distant second population wise and a world power for the foreseeable future.
It's the economic decline, not population decline! (Score:2)
Should they bother? China's population is in collapse and as things get worse, I would expect more and more of their educated and talented to flee for greener pastures.
Even if their population is in decline, China is big enough that it will remain a distant second population wise and a world power for the foreseeable future.
The remaining population is pretty old. Every major company is diversifying their supply chain in order to prepare to pull out of China if they need to. When a country is in decline, their best and brightest tend to leave. They also have a massive gender imbalance and Chinese women are usually desired more overseas than their male counterparts. So you're a Chinese woman...you can find a Chinese husband who expects you to work, care for his parents, do all the childcare and all the housework....or you ca
Re: (Score:2)
The Samsung variant of Android is almost a different OS.
Re: (Score:2)
Then it would be wise for both Xiaomi and Huawei to collaborate on a shared OS, that would be greater than the sum of its parts. An OS with 15% market share is bigger that two, one with 10% and another with 5%, because it has better access to apps and hardware support.
So instead of being spied on by the USA government (Score:4, Insightful)
users will be spied on by the Chinese government. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
So, like mother Russia? (Score:2)
They'll have not Android, but Hongqi Anzhuo instead?
How about a review of HarmonyOS? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The parallels between China and Russia are (Score:5, Interesting)
They managed tech demos but the projects ultimately failed miserably.
Between Xi purging his own party of any threats to himself, and also purging all the top successful businessmen, and breaking up the best companies and handing control over to friends and family, and now this? It’s like I’m watching a rerun of a netflix series titled “Russia Inc” and season 2 is a complete rehash of season 1. The cast and budget are 5 times bigger, but there isn’t a single new plot point.
I sincerely hope that China winds up a better country than Russia. I really do. Russia is permanently caught in the middle income trap, and their elites simply won’t allow the country to develop any further because it means they lose control. They’ve reached this bad equilibrium point where anyone who demonstrates success above a certain level gets liquidated and suppressed by the state, and I’m seriously worried that China is headed down the same path. Which makes me kind of sad. Think of the powerhouse they would be if they had become a billion-strong capitalist democracy instead of a state-controlled oligarchy with an Emperor.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Always interesting to see more of the Fukuyama adherents who genuinely believe that geography doesn't matter, history is over, Anglo culture won and is destined to rule everywhere and it's all about consumerism. Even in the world that has so obviously demonstrated this ideology to be a blip on the radar of history, rapidly fading away.
China's culture is far older than any of the Western cultures, and it will very likely be here long after ours are gone. Naive babble by Anglo children that they have a superi
Re:The parallels between China and Russia are (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that culture is expressed only through Current Year level of technological progress. People were uncultured savages before the age of IT.
Re: (Score:2)
Remember that culture is expressed only through Current Year level of technological progress. People were uncultured savages before the age of IT.
"the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away"
Let's stick an AI camera on every lamppost.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, mountains remain high and emperor far away. Funny how technology isn't a God, but merely a tool.
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm "significantly higher above your intelligence level" posting, pointing out that anglo culture worshipping technology as a temporally universal God does not make it so.
Re: (Score:2)
Main ones, yes. Cantonese and Mandarin. I'm not talking about regional dialects and local ethnocentric languages of small minorities, I'm talking about China as a whole.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's a nice list of dialects. You're simply making my point that due to separation of fiefdoms, some dialects became difficult to figure out.
It's not terribly special though. I still remember going to university, and listening to a lecturer for an hour, and not understanding a thing. He was speaking Finnish, but dialect I couldn't comprehend. After he finished, he asked how many of us understood him. Three people out of about fifty raised hands. He was speaking a Savo dialect of Finnish.
Unlike China which
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm talking about dialects. What are you talking about?
Re: (Score:3)
Re:The parallels between China and Russia are (Score:5, Interesting)
Capitalism has only performed well for a short period on a historical timescale, and it seems to be burning itself out. Wealth inequality is increasing in major Western societies, particularly the US. Increases in productivity are not benefiting the majority of workers. People are working more hours while there hasn't been real wage growth in decades.
Meanwhile, people are still being lifted out of poverty in China as their economy grows.
Athens is called the birthplace of democracy, but you wouldn't recognise it as the same thing as what's called democracy today. It was a form of direct democracy, and voting was restricted to males over the age of 30 who had performed military service (i.e. no concept of universal suffrage at all). They also had ostracism as a way of holding public officials at least somewhat accountable.
The other thing that people neglect to mention is that Athenian democracy was never very stable. Democracy always collapsed before too long. Athens was always more stable and prosperous under tyranny than it was under democracy.
Re:The parallels between China and Russia are (Score:5, Interesting)
Same goes for the wealth inequality thing. It makes for great click-bait “capitalism dying cause of wealth inequality”. Read the actual scholarly articles and the picture is messy. Non-capitalisms aren’t exactly paragons of equality, are they?
You make a valid point that Greek democracy was rough, and that modern capitalist democracy is a relatively new invention. Very true, but some modern capitalist democracies are pushing 300 years and still going (overall) strong. How old do you have to be before people stop considering you a child? 300 years is getting up there..
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism has only performed well for a short period on a historical timescale, and it seems to be burning itself out.
That wasn't real capitalism. Real capitalism has never been tried.
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism has only performed well for a short period on a historical timescale, and it seems to be burning itself out.
Nonsense. It emerged in 16th century when trade started to replace farming. And most economies are mixed economies combining free private business with state intervention. See John Maynard Keynes.
Re: (Score:2)
Capitalism has only performed well for a short period on a historical timescale, and it seems to be burning itself out. Wealth inequality is increasing in major Western societies, particularly the US. Increases in productivity are not benefiting the majority of workers. People are working more hours while there hasn't been real wage growth in decades.
Meanwhile, people are still being lifted out of poverty in China as their economy grows.
If you want to talk about historical timescales, it would make sense to note that centrally planned economics killed more than 10% of the populace in 1959-1961 (the Great Chinese Famine). They haven't yet prospered enough to balance out that little screw-up. And the American Experiment has been going for a while, though it certainly does seem to be declining. But let's see.
Re: (Score:2)
Anglo isn't a race, it's a culture. It would be nice if you stopped projecting your extreme racial prejudices on others.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes. The entire concept of Chinese Empire throughout history, and why we consider Middle Kingdom to have at least five millenia of uninterrpted existence as a distinct civilization is because they did everything on that list except for the last point. The fact that you provided solid list of what Chinese culture did for at least those five millenia, and then appended "using prisoners for organ transplants" demonstrates a truly astounding level of stupidity on your part, even for an ignorant and opinionated
Re: (Score:2)
>So China has been wiping out 50m+ of their own people on a regular basis throughout history?
Are you familiar with concept of "rate"?
>They've devastated the environment?
Yes.
>They've build endless piles of coal burning power plants through history while the planet burns?
Are you familiar with linearity of time? And the fact that technology is not a temporally omnipresent God?
>They've conducted mercantilism for millennia?
Yes. And conquest. And mass scale ethnic cleansing.
>They've claimed huge sw
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you. I've been called anti-China by local China shills for so long. It's good to be finally recognized as a shill.
Call me a communist next please. I haven't been called that in a while.
It's infinitely funny to me that you may be ideologically extremely opposed to actual Chinese shills... and yet you act exactly as they do. Just with different talking points.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you should check out what happened to the Formosan's and Formosa as one example pre-Mao.
Re: (Score:2)
I wish for Firefox OS revival (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Very little advertising, very little hardware supported it and not enough apps available. Firefox OS had no chance to succeed.
How to beat Android (Score:2)
To beat Android in the global market they'd need a vastly superior system or a somewhat better one at a significantly lower price.
I'm not an Android fan (tried it twice, not my thing) but my Android friends and family are fanatical about it. Except at the low end super price sensitive side of the market, none would seriously consider switching.
There is no point in comparing against iPhone. It's like saying Honda sells more cars than Ferrari therefore Honda is better somehow. iPhone's user base is happily
Re: How to beat Android (Score:2)
do you think China could beat google in a OS war on android phones?
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt the typical user knows or cares they're being spied on. I don't see that as a big differentiator and how could they trust this other phone isn't spying on them? The one thing all consumers know universally is they're being lied to (for any and every product from every manufacturer of anything). It's expected. So a promise of "we don't spy on you" will fall flat.
Consumers want the thing they want for the cheapest price they can get it for. Privacy isn't high on the check list or desires, sadly.
A
Re: (Score:2)
>"do you think China could beat google in a OS war on android phones?"
Not ones sold in THIS country (US), for sure. I have a hard enough time trusting Google at all. I am certainly not going to run some Communist-state-sponsored/controlled OS on MY devices. I have a feeling I am in the great majority with that view. As for other countries, I don't know, but I suspect most Western ones will feel the same.
Those in China probably won't have a choice at some point. Points right back to "Red Flag Linux."
This is how the US is shooting itself in the foot (Score:3)
When the US imposes embargoes right and left, right and left are forced to develop their own technologies, eventually leaving the US behind because US stuff isn't needed anymore.
China is building its own mobile ecosystem thing, its own AI tech. Russia is building its own CPU manufacturing industry. They're not quite there yet but they will be eventually.
As for US allies, don't think for a minute they're not taking stock of how the US is able to bully other countries around at will: they too are trying to loosen their dependence on US tech, albeit more quietly.
What did Trump think would happen when he launched his boneheaded worldwide embargo program? All he did was hasten the US' slide into irrelevance.
Re: (Score:2)
This. I studied (at a trivial level) economics at school back in 1986 and it was already well-understood that protectionism is bad for the country doing it. Yet successive governments in so-called civilized countries keep on doing it because it wins votes and appeals to lowest common denominator bases. See also printing money instead of hitting the reset button or at least allowing some short-term suffering for the sake of long-term stability.
Re: (Score:2)
Protectionism is a sign of desperation. Because too many people are badly educated and have no clue about history, it can often be sold as "patriotism" and "protecting our workers". That is not what it does in the slightly longer run. The only way to stay competitive when the competition is getting stronger is to get your act together and fix your own problems. Protectionism makes this just a lot harder a few years down the road and much more likely to fail.
They Must Have Some Apple Money (Score:3)
Backing them.
Fuck Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess you are unfamiliar with the China-Apple relationship. Or you know and are just a useless Apple sympathizer. Either way, Fuck Apple again.
Re: (Score:2)
goodness (Score:3)
no longer be compatible (Score:2)
A key moment will come next year, when Huawei says HarmonyOS will no longer be compatible with Android apps.
How harmonious. /s :-)
Lag UI (Score:3)
Well as long as they prioritize the UI thread from its ground up construction it won’t lag the way android does on weaker hardware. Can’t stand how poor of a performer it is. Even Microsoft’s windows phone 7 and 8 was silky smooth on single core hardware.
I for one... (Score:2)
I for one welcome the new distro wars.
This is good news as it will bring more variety and Android will no longer but such an attractive attack surface.
Dumb more (Score:2)
They should make an OS that's compatible with both Apple and Android, rather than create a walled garden.
I run DOS, Windows 3.1, XP and 10 under Linux in various VMs.
All about the apps (Score:2)
My previous phone was a Huawei P20 and I loved it: good hardware, good software, good battery and a decent price. But I have no intention to even try a HarmonyOS device because the apps I want and need aren't there. And they won't be there, as the apps developed in the Western word aren't allowed to go there. On HarmonyOS you have to live either with worse replacement apps (like Petal Maps instead of Google Maps) or install first party apps from shady 3-rd party sources and live with compatibility issues.
It'd be nice... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are ware that Germany is still a country, right?
Re: (Score:3)
>US States are certainly not countries, in the same way I don't consider Wales, England, or Scotland countries.
LOL! Well that says a lot about you, none of it good.
Re: (Score:2)
>"LOL! Well that says a lot about you, none of it good."
How is that?
Re: (Score:2)
needing to be sovereign
What does that mean to you? Able to make decisions and change things? Able to flounce around with blue passports?
Germany has much more decision power than most other countries in the world. Certainly more than, for example, the UK, which currently doesn't even control it's own privacy or product safety regulations (Germany does that for the UK, together with other EU nations, without taking UK input into account).
just choosing to outsource some of its sovereignty
All countries do that, it's what international treaties do. The most important, for example tho
Re: (Score:2)
>"What does that mean to you?"
Sovereign? It means there is no higher power that can dictate your government's policy of which it has no way to say "no".
Virginia- not sovereign vs USA- sovereign.
England- not sovereign vs Britain/UK- sovereign.
>"[outsourcing sovereignty] All countries do that, it's what international treaties do."
But a sovereign country can choose to enter and exit such treaties or organizations.
Re: (Score:2)
But a sovereign country can choose to enter and exit such treaties or organizations.
So under those definitions Germany is at least as "sovereign" because they can choose to enter and exit the EU, but because they are currently in the EU they have final decision making over the standards of products that people use, but the UK is not because no matter what people in the UK will buy European products where the UK has little or no say over the standards dictated by the EU.
Re: (Score:3)
But it is also currently a sort-of sub-country under the EU (which is FAR more than just a "trade federation").
The term you're looking for is "confederation". Basically what the US was after the declaration of independence but before ratification of the constitution, governed by a document called the articles of confederation. The EU is a de-facto confederation.
NB: Despite it's name, the CSA was more of a federation, per its own constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
Your post doesnt address the conversation. The above stated that China should be punished like Germany was in WW2 by having its nationhood taken away from it. That is not at all how history happened.
Re: (Score:2)
That is true
Re: (Score:2)
You're questioning my reading comprehension? Are you retarded? Your quote "China shouldn't even exist as a country. The world should punish them for COVID similar to what we did to Germany after WW2." only makes sense if Germany is no longer a country.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
After ww1 we punished Germany. After ww2 we wiped the decks clean and started over. Won both wars but treated them very differently after.
Re: (Score:2)
Sort of. Russia effectively annexed East Germany into the USSR, complete with its own KGB. From Nazi shit to Stalin shit. Instead of Volkswagons, they drove Trabants. Basically went from shit to shittier. I'd call that punishment, but that's just me. Others, e.g. rsilvergun who view socialism as the opposite of punishment, would disagree.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok fair enough but not the same as maintaining the country as is and inflicting external punishments. But yes the East Germans were certainly punished for losing the war in that sense you describe, not denying that.
Re: The future of China (Score:2)
Correct, in your homeland of China and your neighbor Russia are virtually indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. Dictatorship, actively committing genocide, gestapo style policing...really the only major difference is you don't speak German. Other than that, you're basically the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The future of China (Score:2)
Why would speaking the truth make me look bad?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: The future of China (Score:2)
May as well, you never had one to begin with.