#how to export to china

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

By 刘小花

[ithacanradio]

there's a lot of confusion around the EU especially after Brexit, since wanting to leave it now seems like a right wing position. however this is an extremely important matter and this podcast episode explains rlly well why from a marxist point of view the EU is an evil, imperialist and anti democratic institution made to uphold capitalism.

[cathkaesque]

The local population in countries that export bananas typically eat different varieties grown primarily by small farmers. The ones for the Americans and the Europeans, Cavendish variety bananas, are grown in huge, monoculture plantations that are susceptible to disease. The banana industry consumes more agrichemicals than any other in the world, asides from cotton. Most plantations will spend more on pesticides than on wages. Pesticides are sprayed by plane, 85% of which does not land on the bananas and instead lands on the homes of workers in the surrounding area and seeps into the groundwater. The results are cancers, stillbirths, and dead rivers.

The supermarkets dominate the banana trade and force the price of bananas down. Plantations resolve this issue by intensifying and degrading working conditions. Banana workers will work for up to 14 hours a day in tropical heat, without overtime pay, for 6 days a week. Their wages will not cover their cost of housing, food, and education for their children. On most plantations independent trade unions are, of course, suppressed. Contracts are insecure, or workers are hired through intermediaries, and troublemakers are not invited back.

Who benefits most from this arrangement? The export value of bananas is worth $8bn - the retail value of these bananas is worth $25bn. Here's a breakdown of who gets what from the sale of banana in the EU.

On average, the banana workers get between 5 and 9% of the total value, while the retailers capture between 36 to 43% of the value. So if you got a bunch of bananas at Tesco (the majority of UK bananas come from Costa Rica) for 95p, 6.65p would go to the banana workers, and 38p would go to Tesco.

Furthermore, when it comes to calculating a country's GDP (the total sum of the value of economic activity going on in a country, which is used to measure how rich or poor a country is, how fast its economy is 'growing' and therefore how valuable their currency is on the world market, how valuable its government bonds, its claim on resources internationally…etc), the worker wages, production, export numbers count towards the country producing the banana, while retail, ripening, tariffs, and shipping & import will count towards the importing country. A country like Costa Rica will participate has to participate in this arrangement as it needs ‘hard’ (i.e. Western) currencies in order to import essential commodities on the world market.

So for the example above of a bunch of Costa Rican bananas sold in a UK supermarket, 20.7p will be added to Costa Rica’s GDP while 74.3p will be added to the UK’s GDP. Therefore, the consumption of a banana in the UK will add more to the UK’s wealth than growing it will to Costa Rica’s. The same holds for Bangladeshi t-shirts, iPhones assembled in China, chocolate made with cocoa from Ghana…it’s the heart of how the capitalism of the ‘developed’ economy functions. Never ending consumption to fuel the appearance of wealth, fuelled by the exploitation of both land and people in the global south.

[catgirlforeskin]

People will tell me oh Ms. Foreskin, why would you want China to annex the western seaboard of the United States, something something authoritarian something something censorship. But it’s quite simple

I want PRC engineers taking over Amtrak and making the coast starlight a bullet train, I want to get from Portland to LA in 6 hours instead of the current 30. I don’t care how many home owners need to die for this

I’m an ardent West Coast Best Coast zealot, and we require more dense urban development to catch up to New York. Only way we’re getting that is Belt and Road initiative construction.

All American exported culture, whether it be media or tech, is developed on the west coast. When we become a new province of China and are folded into the Great Firewall, it will shield the rest of the globe from us and our idiots on social media

[centrally-unplanned]

We have another entry in one of my favourite genres, "people showing their whole ass trying to claim East Asians Are A Conformist People", and this part absolutely sent me:

"Compare the doll-like uniformity of a K-Pop star to the striking uniqueness of David Bowie" or don't do that?? Why would you do that very dumb thing?? The "Individualist West" has pop bands; hell, these K-pop groups are incredibly successful in the west. Korea/China/etc have avant-garde artists like David Bowie; they just aren't a controlled corporate product for export so you, dear author, haven't heard of them, because you don't know anything about China or Korea.

As revealed by that last line "the lone outlaw type that originates in Odysseus" no it originates in all storytelling in every society. You are writing an essay about culture in China, there are literally four books you just have to know the name of to even apply for that post and this is one of them:

The book even has a Bowie-style hefty dose of homoeroticism! Precious, irreplaceable levels of swinging-and-missing going on here.

And yes this is a lead-in for an essay about how AI will invalidate China's cultural model because people will use it to cheat on homework, because when it rains it pours.

(H/T Richard Hanania for the reblog, who continues to be highest value-add "shit you can find on the internet" follow around for me, variance is a quality all its own)

[sanrielle]

Amazing fanart by Joanacchi! Posted here on tumblr with their blessing. Each one is based on a style that reflects a particular ancient culture's art history. (See below for descriptions provided by the artist!)

Store (buy these prints!) Twitter Instagram

Aang: Tibetan Thangka

"Thangkas are traditional Tibetan tapestries that have been used for religious and educational purposes since ancient times! The techniques applied can vary greatly, but they usually use silk or cotton fabrics to paint or embroider on. What you can depict in a Thangka is really versatile, and I wanted to represent things that make up Aang as a character."

Zuko and Azula: Japanese Ukiyo-e

"Ukiyo-e is a style that has been around Japan between the 17th and 19th century, and focused mainly in representing daily life, theater(kabuki), natural landscapes, and sometimes historical characters or legends!

Ukiyo-e was developed to be more of a fast and commercial type of art, so many drawings we see are actually woodblock prints, so the artist could do many copies of the same art!

I based my Zuko and Azula pieces on the work of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) one of the last ukiyo-e masters in Japan! He has a specific piece which featured a fire demon fighting a lord that fought back with lighting, and that really matched Zuko and Azula's main techniques!”

Toph: Chinese Portraiture from Ming and Qing Dynasties

"Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) was one of the longest in China! It was also a period where lots of artistic evolutions were happening, especially when it comes to use of colour! There was not a predilection for portraits during this time, but there are a lot of pieces depicting idealized women and goddesses from the standards of the time. For this portrait of Toph, I imagined something that maybe their parents commissioned, depicting a soft and delicate Toph which we know is not what she is about ♥️

Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) was the last Chinese Dynasty to reign before the Revolution. One of the most famous emperors of this period was Qianlong, and he really liked Western art! He commissioned a lot of portraits of his subordinates, and I chose a portrait of one of his bodyguards as a reference for the second Toph portrait, which I believe is much more like how she would want to be represented! The poem on top talks about the bodyguards' achievements during a specific war. I had no time to come up with a poem for Toph, so I just used the same one for the composition!”

Sokka and Katara: Inuit Lithograph

"For a long time, Inuit art expressed itself in utilitarian ways. The Nomadic lifestyle of early Inuit tribes played a huge part in that: most art pieces are carved in useful tools, clothing, or children's toys, small and easy to be transported, and depicted scenes and patterns representing their daily lives!

That changed a lot during the colonization. Since the settling of the Inuit tribes, many art pieces began to be created in order to be exported to foreigns, so they started to sculpt bigger and more decorative pieces.

Lithography, which is a type of printmaking, was introduced to Inuit people by James Houston, that learned the technique from the japanese. The art form was quickly embraced by the inuit, as part of the process is very similar to carving. Prints that are produced by inuit artists are still being sold today!

As lithography is not an old art style and it's still commercially relevant to the Inuit communities, since creating these in 2021 I have been donating regularly to the Inuit Art Foundation, not only all the money I get from selling some prints of these but a bit more, at least once a year. Hopefully, I can increase donations this year!”

[whenmemorydies]

Breakdown of a racist microaggression in Ice Chips 3x08

This title is misleading because any scene with Donna in it is likely going to be one gigantic macroaggression of some sort lol but I wanted to talk about this scene in Ice Chips and how subtly but impactfully it was played by all the actors in it:

Recall the beginning of 3x08 Ice Chips. Donna has just done her narcissistic thing in the parking lot of the hospital, ignoring-a-very-pregnant-and-about-to-give-birth Natalie's pleas to "shut the fuck up" and we are now in the hospital room with the two of them.

Donna is continuing to do her narcissistic thing and has begun to regale everyone in the room (which at this point is Natalie and a nurse) with stories about being a mother, asserting herself as an expert on the journey her daughter is about to embark on.

She tells Natalie and the nurse (who happens to be Black) about how badly she wanted to be a mother. She said its because:

I wanted someone to love me the way I had seen.

So yes, alarm bells. Wanting a baby so you can feel loved? Probably not the best reason to bring a whole other person into the world.

Note: Mikey entered the world with so much of Donna's expectations and trauma waiting to receive him like his first swaddle. No wonder he knew from a young age that pursuing a singular passion of his own was not going to happen for him because he had people to look after (recall his discussion with Tina in 3x06 Napkins). Parentified, eldest siblings unite /sob.

But back to Donna, Natalie, the nurse and the hospital room.

Donna then hits us with this curveball - her feelings about the exact parent/child relationships she had seen:

You know, all those smug mothers down at the Jewel, blocking the aisle with their strollers.

Yikes.

Donna is jealous of those mothers. She wants to be one of them. She wants to block the aisle at the Jewel (which a quick google tells me is probably short for Jewel-Osco - a chain of grocery stores in Chicago). She's so resentful of mothers with children, that she calls them "smug" for no other reason than they're probably not yelling at their kids in public (lol, also more yikes). She wants to be smug too. It's almost like Donna doesn't want a child, but what she thinks a child will give her: love she clearly hasn't experienced either as a child herself or as an adult . And also the power to be smug and take her place at the Jewel. Its almost like, to Donna, a child is an object, a means to an end.

But we're not done.

Then Donna says:

Do you know what Gina said to me? Gina fucking said to me - she looked down at my stomach - she says to me,

'You know, Donna, there are lots of good Chinese babies, honey.'

And then Donna turns to the only racialised person in the room, the Black nurse and says:

I mean, can you imagine?

And to her credit, that nurse did not kiss her teeth (she has so much more patience and professionalism than me lmao) but I felt her reaction to my CORE:

The biting of tongue, the looking up for divine intervention to get the person speaking to shut the fuck up, the looking down and pursing of lips when you realise no such help is coming, lmao.

I felt that reaction because I have been in this situation so many times as a racialised person (specifically as a non-Black POC). What is the situation exactly? The situation is a white person making a racist comment or "joke" in front of BIPOC folks in order to feel validated in their racism. The situation is getting BIPOC folks to collude/cosign in racism by doing it in front of them and trying to get them in on the "joke" too. This nurse was not having any of it.

For folks who are unsure about what was racist about Donna's comment: the "Chinese babies" Donna is likely referring to are the wave of Asian-American adoptions (where largely white Americans adopted children from China, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and other East Asian countries) that began during the Cold War. The racism is the exporting of Donna's previously discussed objectification of a child, to the East. If she can't make a baby to fill the emotional vortex of her heart, Donna can buy adopt a "Chinese" one (the use of "Chinese" to refer to a myriad of nations and people is also racist). To be clear: white people treating BIPOC folks as objects to fill their needs and not as humans deserving of dignity and respect, is racist.

And yes, this is Donna recounting what someone named Gina has said to her. Its not technically what Donna has said so she's innocent right? Wrong. Donna is recounting a racist incident in front of a BIPOC person whom she has no relationship with. She's not condemning the racism of her friend so for all we know, she may have the same views as Gina - that Asian babies are fine to be adopted if you're a white woman who's feeling very lonely and just wants a baby really badly. This is deeply uncomfortable. My skin was crawling during this scene.

Natalie, observant woman that she is, clocks the nurse's discomfort right away:

And then Donna says:

The joke was on her. God rest her soul. I was two months gone with Michael at the time.

So we know Donna is not condemning Gina for her racism. She's condemning Gina for assuming Donna couldn't get pregnant on her own. Great. So now we and the nurse have a better sense of Donna's position here (Natalie being Donna's daughter surely already knows her mother's position).

Understandably, the nurse does not take Donna's bait and does not affirm her statements. So Donna doubles down in her condemnation of Gina, trying to get the nurse to affirm her any way, any how.

Natalie can see where this may end up going (when JLC does that upside-down-smile-grimace, even I know this is about to get messy lmao) so, being the well-practised parentified daughter that she is, she intervenes:

Then Donna reassures Natalie and the nurse that she did call Pete and she did leave a message and that everything is good. Still Donna needs affirmation from the nurse (can we talk about white folks needing BIPOC folks, in particular Black women, to affirm and hold their feelings for them? Can we talk about the demands of emotional labour?) so she tries another tactic:

The nurse can see right through Donna's posturing:

But she remains respectful and professional, politely responding: Wow.

(which wasn't as sarcastic in the scene as it might read here lol)

Natalie, like the nurse, can also see that her mother is, in fact, on one:

When the nurse does not give Donna anything more than "wow", she gets visibly pissed off. She pulls a face like "That's it?! Wow? Don't you know how hard it is to walk while being in labour?!" JLC goes FULL upside-down-smile-grimace:

But before Donna can embarrass herself further, she gets interrupted.

By a visibly Asian nurse:

And proceeds to shut the fuck up:

The way I CACKLED at the end of this scene lol.

Anyway, I was rewatching this episode for another meta but as is often the case with this show, something else revealed itself in the rewatch, so here we are.

This scene in Ice Chips is literally only one minute long. But the subtleties of facial expression, the looks thrown, the silences, the script choices were *chef's kiss* for so accurately depicting a racist microaggression and the inherent narcissism of racism itself - above and beyond any other mental health diagnoses that Donna might have. This scene was a perfect example of someone having mental health issues and also doing tone-deaf and racist shit, and how blurry those things may appear when you watch them in action.

As humans, we can have multiple things be true of ourselves at the same time. Donna can be mentally unwell and can say and do racist things. Natalie can love Sydney - an unambigiously Black woman - like a sister and also love her unambiguously offensive (lol) mother Donna. Carmy can love his largely BIPOC staff but then treat them like cogs in a machine at work.

I'm not saying that humans contain multitudes, the end. If some of those multitudes are harmful to BIPOC folks or other groups that face systemic discrimination then it is imperative that we try to change the behaviours we have that are harmful. Donna has work to do, so does Carmy and so does Nat. But I'm also saying this shit is messy and its complex. I just thought I'd point out that 3x08 Ice Chips did a great job of showcasing a bit of that mess and a bit of that complexity.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Op-Ed from the New York Times:

At first glance, Xi Jinping seems to have lost the plot.

China’s president appears to be smothering the entrepreneurial dynamism that allowed his country to crawl out of poverty and become the factory of the world. He has brushed aside Deng Xiaoping’s maxim “To get rich is glorious” in favor of centralized planning and Communist-sounding slogans like “ecological civilization” and “new, quality productive forces,” which have prompted predictions of the end of China’s economic miracle.

But Mr. Xi is, in fact, making a decades-long bet that China can dominate the global transition to green energy, with his one-party state acting as the driving force in a way that free markets cannot or will not. His ultimate goal is not just to address one of humanity’s most urgent problems — climate change — but also to position China as the global savior in the process.

It has already begun. In recent years, the transition away from fossil fuels has become Mr. Xi’s mantra and the common thread in China’s industrial policies. It’s yielding results: China is now the world’s leading manufacturer of climate-friendly technologies, such as solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles. Last year the energy transition was China’s single biggest driver of overall investment and economic growth, making it the first large economy to achieve that.

This raises an important question for the United States and all of humanity: Is Mr. Xi right? Is a state-directed system like China’s better positioned to solve a generational crisis like climate change, or is a decentralized market approach — i.e., the American way — the answer?

How this plays out could have serious implications for American power and influence.

Look at what happened in the early 20th century, when fascism posed a global threat. America entered the fight late, but with its industrial power — the arsenal of democracy — it emerged on top. Whoever unlocks the door inherits the kingdom, and the United States set about building a new architecture of trade and international relations. The era of American dominance began.

Climate change is, similarly, a global problem, one that threatens our species and the world’s biodiversity. Where do Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia and other large developing nations that are already grappling with the effects of climate change find their solutions? It will be in technologies that offer an affordable path to decarbonization, and so far, it’s China that is providing most of the solar panels, electric cars and more. China’s exports, increasingly led by green technology, are booming, and much of the growth involves exports to developing countries.

From the American neoliberal economic viewpoint, a state-led push like this might seem illegitimate or even unfair. The state, with its subsidies and political directives, is making decisions that are better left to the markets, the thinking goes.

But China’s leaders have their own calculations, which prioritize stability decades from now over shareholder returns today. Chinese history is littered with dynasties that fell because of famines, floods or failures to adapt to new realities. The Chinese Communist Party’s centrally planned system values constant struggle for its own sake, and today’s struggle is against climate change. China received a frightening reminder of this in 2022, when vast areas of the country baked for weeks under a record heat wave that dried up rivers, withered crops and was blamed for several heatstroke deaths.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Reuters is Canada-Based Private Media]

Bangladesh will raise the minimum wage for garment workers by 56.25%, the first hike since 2019, the junior labour minister said on Tuesday after a week of protests calling for higher salaries. The minimum wage for workers will be increased from 8,000 taka to 12,500 taka ($114) per month from Dec. 1, State Minister for Labour and Employment Monnujan Sufian said. There will also be a 5% annual increment. The protests, which led to clashes with police that killed two workers and wounded dozens more, pushed the government to form a panel of factory owners, union leaders and officials to consider the demand for higher pay.[...]

"(Government welfare) cards will be provided to the workers, later the ration cards will be given to them so they can buy essential commodities at cheaper rates," Rahman, also a former president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told Reuters. Workers, however, are not happy with the rise at a time when inflation is running at 9.5%.

7 Nov 23

[TheDailyStar is Bengali Private Media]

The wage board for garment workers has set the minimum salary at Tk 12,500, a little over half of what workers demand. Union leaders have rejected the new minimum wage put forth by the wage board, which accepted the proposal of factory owners’ representative Siddiqur Rahman. The current starting wage is Tk 8,000. Union leaders yesterday threatened to go for tough demonstrations. Workers had demonstrated for 12 straight days.[...]

Before the announcement, members of the Minimum Wage Board, formed on April 9, held a meeting at its office. While the meeting was going on, union leaders outside chanted slogans demanding a minimum wage of at least Tk 23,000. Demanding a starting salary of Tk 25,000, Montu Ghosh, president of Garment Sramik Trade Union Kendra, said the measly amount set was not enough to lead a good life. Inflation and high prices of essentials have made things worse for garment workers. Ghosh along with other union leaders of the Mojuri Briddhite Garment Sramik Andolon, a platform of workers’ unions, in a statement rejected the new minimum wage and called for a rally on Friday where they would announce tougher programmes[...]

If the workers’ unrest continues, the responsibility will lie with the wage board, Nazma said.[...]

[The] president of the Bangladesh Apparel Workers’ Federation, said the prime minister’s intervention is needed in setting the new minimum wage. He demanded ration cards, not the family cards of the TCB, for the garment workers.[...]

The new minimum wage is much less than those offered in India, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Only Pakistan has a lower minimum wage. Early last month, the Centre for Policy Dialogue, after a survey, interviews and research, estimated that the minimum wage for an RMG worker should be Tk 17,568. The new minimum wage falls short of that. The think-tank had delved into food and non-food expenditure patterns of 228 workers from 76 factories and even considered how many earning members an average RMG worker’s family had. The CPD had stated that the food cost for an RMG worker family was at least Tk 9,198 a month but notes that the standard food expenditure for a family of four would be Tk 16,529 and that the garment workers have to cut corners to make ends meet.

It said 12 percent of the workers’ families do not buy milk at all, 5 percent do not buy sugar, and 5 percent do not consume fruits.

8 Nov 23

[dresshistorynerd]

How did cotton win over linen anyway?

In short, colonialism, slavery and the industrial revolution. In length:

Cotton doesn't grow in Europe so before the Modern Era, cotton was rare and used in small quantities for specific purposes (lining doublets for example). The thing with cotton is, that's it can be printed with dye very easily. The colors are bright and they don't fade easily. With wool and silk fabrics, which were the more traditional fabrics for outer wear in Europe (silk for upper classes of course), patterns usually needed to be embroidered or woven to the cloth to last, which was very expensive. Wool is extremely hard to print to anything detailed that would stay even with modern technology. Silk can be printed easily today with screen printing, but before late 18th century the technique wasn't known in western world (it was invented in China a millenium ago) and the available methods didn't yeld good results.

So when in the late 17th century European trading companies were establishing trading posts in India, a huge producer of cotton fabrics, suddenly cotton was much more available in Europe. Indian calico cotton, which was sturdy and cheap and was painted or printed with colorful and intricate floral patters, chintz, especially caught on and became very fashionable. The popular Orientalism of the time also contributed to it becoming fasionable, chintz was seen as "exotic" and therefore appealing.

Here's a typical calico jacket from late 18th century. The ones in European markets often had white background, but red background was also fairly common.

The problem with this was that this was not great for the business of the European fabric producers, especially silk producers in France and wool producers in England, who before were dominating the European textile market and didn't like that they now had competition. So European countries imposed trade restrictions for Indian cotton, England banning cotton almost fully in 1721. Since the introduction of Indian cottons, there had been attempts to recreate it in Europe with little success. They didn't have nearly advanced enough fabric printing and cotton weaving techniques to match the level of Indian calico. Cotton trade with India didn't end though. The European trading companies would export Indian cottons to West African market to fund the trans-Atlantic slave trade that was growing quickly. European cottons were also imported to Africa. At first they didn't have great demand as they were so lacking compared to Indian cotton, but by the mid 1700s quality of English cotton had improved enough to be competitive.

Inventions in industrial textile machinery, specifically spinning jenny in 1780s and water frame in 1770s, would finally give England the advantages they needed to conquer the cotton market. These inventions allowed producing very cheap but good quality cotton and fabric printing, which would finally produce decent imitations of Indian calico in large quantities. Around the same time in mid 1700s, The East Indian Company had taken over Bengal and soon following most of the Indian sub-continent, effectively putting it under British colonial rule (but with a corporate rule dystopian twist). So when industrialized English cotton took over the market, The East India Company would suppress Indian textile industry to utilize Indian raw cotton production for English textile industry and then import cotton textiles back to India. In 1750s India's exports were mainly fine cotton and silk, but during the next century Indian export would become mostly raw materials. They effectively de-industrialized India to industrialize England further.

India, most notably Bengal area, had been an international textile hub for millennia, producing the finest cottons and silks with extremely advance techniques. Loosing cotton textile industry devastated Indian local economies and eradicated many traditional textile craft skills. Perhaps the most glaring example is that of Dhaka muslin. Named after the city in Bengal it was produced in, it was extremely fine and thin cotton requiring very complicated and time consuming spinning process, painstakingly meticulous hand-weaving process and a very specific breed of cotton. It was basically transparent as seen depicted in this Mughal painting from early 17th century.

It was used by e.g. the ancient Greeks, Mughal emperors and, while the methods and it's production was systematically being destroyed by the British to squash competition, it became super fashionable in Europe. It was extremely expensive, even more so than silk, which is probably why it became so popular among the rich. In 1780s Marie Antoinette famously and scandalously wore chemise a la reine made from multiple layers of Dhaka muslin. In 1790s, when the empire silhouette took over, it became even more popular, continuing to the very early 1800s, till Dhaka muslin production fully collapsed and the knowledge and skill to produce it were lost. But earlier this year, after years lasting research to revive the Dhaka muslin funded by Bangladeshi government, they actually recreated it after finding the right right cotton plant and gathering spinners and weavers skilled in traditional craft to train with it. (It's super cool and I'm making a whole post about it (it has been in the making for months now) so I won't extend this post more.)

Marie Antoinette in the famous painting with wearing Dhaka muslin in 1783, and empress Joséphine Bonaparte in 1801 also wearing Dhaka muslin.

While the trans-Atlantic slave trade was partly funded by the cotton trade and industrial English cotton, the slave trade would also be used to bolster the emerging English cotton industry by forcing African slaves to work in the cotton plantations of Southern US. This produced even more (and cheaper (again slave labor)) raw material, which allowed the quick upward scaling of the cotton factories in Britain. Cotton was what really kicked off the industrial revolution, and it started in England, because they colonized their biggest competitor India and therefore were able to take hold of the whole cotton market and fund rapid industrialization.

Eventually the availability of cotton, increase in ready-made clothing and the luxurious reputation of cotton lead to cotton underwear replacing linen underwear (and eventually sheets) (the far superior option for the reasons I talked about here) in early Victorian Era. Before Victorian era underwear was very practical, just simple rectangles and triangles sewn together. It was just meant to protect the outer clothing and the skin, and it wasn't seen anyway, so why put the relatively scarce resources into making it pretty? Well, by the mid 1800s England was basically fully industrialized and resource were not scarce anymore. Middle class was increasing during the Victorian Era and, after the hard won battles of the workers movement, the conditions of workers was improving a bit. That combined with decrease in prices of clothing, most people were able to partake in fashion. This of course led to the upper classes finding new ways to separate themselves from lower classes. One of these things was getting fancy underwear. Fine cotton kept the fancy reputation it had gained first as an exotic new commodity in late 17th century and then in Regency Era as the extremely expensive fabric of queens and empresses. Cotton also is softer than linen, and therefore was seen as more luxurious against skin. So cotton shifts became the fancier shifts. At the same time cotton drawers were becoming common additional underwear for women.

It wouldn't stay as an upper class thing, because as said cotton was cheap and available. Ready-made clothing also helped spread the fancier cotton underwear, as then you could buy fairly cheaply pretty underwear and you didn't even have to put extra effort into it's decoration. At the same time cotton industry was massive and powerful and very much eager to promote cotton underwear as it would make a very steady and long lasting demand for cotton.

In conclusion, cotton has a dark and bloody history and it didn't become the standard underwear fabric for very good reasons.

Here's couple of excellent sources regarding the history of cotton industry:

The European Response to Indian Cottons, Prasannan Parthasarathi

INDIAN COTTON MILLS AND THE BRITISH ECONOMIC POLICY, 1854-1894, Rajib Lochan Sahoo

[reasonsforhope]

Heya, quick correction.

Sand is not ‘discarded by the construction industry’, the opposite is the case.

Sand has become valuable and even scarce primarily due to the massive need of the concrete industry.

The unregulated shape of the sand holds everything else in concrete together and because of the large scale projects on the Arabian peninsula and in China companies in SE-Asia have illegally begun scraping the bottom of the ocean years ago, causing beach erosion and islands to slowly sink into the ocean.

Sand theft straight from beaches has become a big business.

Even Australia had begun to export sand.

Dams are another issue, holding back the flow of sand & pre-sand material into oceans.

Desert sand is too round for construction purposes but maybe useful for sand batteries.

I don’t know enough about the technology to make an assessment yet, nor on the impact on desert eco-spheres.

Hope that clarifies the issue.

All the best

Thanks for sending in that context about the sand battery article I posted the other day.

Honestly some of this is stuff that I'd heard before and should have connected with the post. Thanks for bringing it up.

I also have no idea if the shape of sand affects its ability to be used in sand batteries. My assumption/understanding is that the shape of the sand would not matter too much, though it might have a (hopefully small) effect on heat storage capacity. Attempts to research this specifically just now didn't go anywhere, rip.

If anyone has more info on the issues with sand batteries and especially how it compares to the issues with lithium-ion batteries, please put it in the notes! I'd be glad to hear it, whether it's good news or bad.

[odinsblog]

Saudi Arabia, the world’s leading exporter of oil, has become the biggest obstacle to an agreement at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where countries are debating whether to call for a phaseout of fossil fuels in order to fight global warming, negotiators and other officials said.

The Saudi delegation has flatly opposed any language in a deal that would even mention fossil fuels — the oil, gas and coal that, when burned, create emissions that are dangerously heating the planet. Saudi negotiators have also objected to a provision, endorsed by at least 118 countries, aimed at tripling global renewable energy capacity by 2030.

Saudi diplomats have been particularly skillful at blocking discussions and slowing the talks, according to interviews with a dozen people who have been inside closed-door negotiations. Tactics include inserting words into draft agreements that are considered poison pills by other countries; slow-walking a provision meant to help vulnerable countries adapt to climate change; staging a walkout in a side meeting; and refusing to sit down with negotiators pressing for a phaseout of fossil fuels.

The Saudi opposition is significant because U.N. rules require that any agreement forged at the climate summit be unanimously endorsed. Any one of the 198 participating nations can thwart a deal.

Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country raising concerns about more ambitious global efforts to fight climate change. The United States has sought to inject caveats into the fossil fuel phaseout language. India and China have opposed language that would single out coal, the most polluting of fossil fuels.

…Saudi Arabia has stood out as the most implacable opponent of any agreement on fossil fuels.

“Most countries vary on the degree or speed of how fast you get out of fossil fuels,” said Linda Kalcher, a former climate adviser to the United Nations who has been in negotiating rooms this week. Saudi Arabia, she said, “doesn’t even want to have the conversation.”

Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.

(continue reading)

[mengjue]

What's Happening in China? The November 2022 Protests

Hello! I know that there's so much going on in the world right now, so not everyone may be aware of what is happening in China right now. I thought that I would try to write a brief explainer, because the current wave of protests is truly unprecedented in the past 30+ years, and there is a lot of fear over what may happen next. For context, I'm doing this as someone who has a PhD in Asian Studies specialising in contemporary Chinese politics, so I don't know everything but I have researched China for many years.

I'll post some decent links at the end along with some China specialists & journalists I follow on Twitter (yeah I know, but it's still the place for the stuff at the moment). Here are the bullet points for those who just want a brief update:

Xi Jinping's government is still enacting a strict Zero Covid policy enforced by state surveillance and strict lockdowns.

On 24 November a fire in an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang province, killed 10. Many blamed strict quarantine policies on preventing evacuation.

Protests followed and have since spread nationwide.

Protesters are taking steps not seen since Tiananmen in 1989, including public chants for Xi and the CCP to step down.

Everyone is currently unsure how the government will respond.

More in-depth discussion and links under the cut:

First a caveat: this is my own analysis/explanation as a Chinese politics specialist. I will include links to read further from other experts and journalists. Also, this will be quite long, so sorry about that!

China's (aka Xi Jinping's) Covid Policy:

The first and most important context: Xi has committed to a strict Zero Covid policy in China, and has refused to change course. Now, other countries have had similar approaches and they undoubtedly saved lives - I was fortunate to live in New Zealand until this year, and Prime Minister Ardern's Zero Covid approach in 2020-2021 helped protect many. The difference is in the style/scope of enforcement, the use of vaccines, and the variant at play. China has stepped up its control on public life over the past 10 years, and has used this to enforce strict quarantine measures without full regard to the impact on people's lives - stories of people not getting food were common. Quarantine has also become a feared situation, as China moves people to facilities often little better than prisons and allegedly without much protection from catching Covid within. A personal friend in Zhengzhou went through national, then provincial, then local quarantines when moving back from NZ, and she has since done her best to avoid going back for her own mental and physical health. Xi has also committed China to its two home-grown vaccines, Sinovac and Sinopharm, both of which have low/dubious efficacy and are considered ineffective against new variants. Finally, with delta and then omicron most of the Zero-Covid countries have modified their approach due to the inability to maintain zero cases. China remains the only country still enacting whole-city eradication lockdowns, and they have become more frequent to the point that several are happening at any given time. The result is a population that is incredibly frustrated and losing hope amidst endless lockdowns and perceived ineffectiveness to address the pandemic.

Other Issues at Play:

Beyond the Covid situation, China is also wrestling with the continued slowdown in its economic growth. While its economic rise and annual GDP growth was nigh meteoric from the 80s to the 00s, it has been slowing over the past ten years, and the government is attempting to manage the transition away from an export-oriented economy to a more fully developed one. However, things are still uncertain, and Covid has taken its toll as it has elsewhere the past couple of years. Youth unemployment in particular is reaching new highs at around 20%, and Xi largely ignored this in his speech at the Party Congress in October (where he entered an unprecedented third term). As a result of the perceived uselessness of China's harsh work culture and its failure to result in a better life, many young Chinese have been promoting 躺平 tǎng píng or "lying flat", aka doing the bare minimum just to get by (similar to the English "quiet quitting"). The combination of economic issues and a botched Covid approach is important, as these directly affect the lives of ordinary middle-class Chinese, and historical it has only been when this occurred that mass movements really took off. The most famous, Tiananmen in 1989, followed China's opening up economic reforms and the dismantling of many economic safety nets allowing for growing inequality. While movements in China often grow to include other topics, having a foundation in something negatively impacting the average Han Chinese person's livelihood is important.

The Spark - 24 Nov 2022 Urumqi Apartment Fire:

The current protests were sparked by a recent fire that broke out in a flat in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang province. (This is the same Xinjiang that is home to the Uighur people, against whom China has enacted a campaign of genocide and cultural destruction.) The fire occurred in the evening and resulted in 10 deaths, which many online blamed on the strict lockdown measures imposed by officials, who prevented people from leaving their homes. It even resulted in a rare public apology by city officials. However, with anger being so high nationwide, in addition to many smaller protests that have occurred over the past two years, this incident has ignited a nationwide movement.

The Protests and Their Significance:

The protests that have broken out over the past couple of days representing the largest and most significant challenge to the leadership since the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Similar to that movement, these protests have occurred at universities and cities across the country, with many students taking part openly. This scale is almost unseen in China, particularly for an anti-government protest. Other than Tiananmen in 1989, the most widespread movements that have occurred have been incidents such as the protest of the 1999 Belgrade bombings or the 2005 and then 2012 anti-Japanese protests, all of which were about anger toward a foreign country.

Beyond the scale the protests are hugely significant in their message as well. Protesters are publicly shouting the phrases "习近平下台 Xí Jìnpíng xiàtái!" and "共产党 下台 Gòngchǎndǎng xiàtái!", which mean "Xi Jinping, step down/resign!" and "CCP, step down/resign!" respectively. To shout a direct slogan for the government to resign is unheard of in China, particularly as Xi has tightened control of civil society. And people are doing this across the country in the thousands, openly and in front of police. This is a major challenge for a leader and party who have prioritised regime stability as a core interest for the majority of their history.

Looking Ahead:

Right now, as of 15:00 Australian Eastern time on Monday, 28 November 2022, the protests are only in their first couple of days and we are unsure as to how the government will respond. Police have already been seen beating protesters and journalists and dragging them away in vehicles. However, in many cases the protests have largely been monitored by police but still permitted to occur. There seems to be uncertainty as to how they want to respond just yet, and as such no unified approach.

Many potential outcomes exist, and I would warn everyone to be careful in overplaying what can be achieved. Most experts I have read are not really expecting this to result in Xi's resignation or regime change - these things are possible, surely, but it is a major task to achieve and the unity & scale of the protest movement remains to be fully seen. The government may retaliate with a hard crackdown as it has done with Tiananmen and other protests throughout the years. It may also quietly revamp some policies without publicly admitting a change in order to both pacify protesters and save face. The CCP often uses mixed tactics, both coopting and suppressing protest movements over the years depending on the situation. Changing from Zero Covid may prove more challenging though, given how much Xi has staked his political reputation on enforcing it.

What is important for everyone online, especially those of us abroad, is to watch out for the misinformation campaign the government will launch to counter these protests. Already twitter is reportedly seeing hundreds of Chinese bot accounts mass post escort advertisements using various city names in order to drown out protest results in the site's search engine. Chinese officials will also likely invoke the standard narrative of Western influence and CIA tactics as the reason behind the protests, as they did during the Hong Kong protests.

Finally, there will be a new surge of misinformation and bad takes from tankies, or leftists who uncritically support authoritarian regimes so long as they are anti-US. An infamous one, the Qiao Collective, has already worked to shift the narrative away from the protests and onto debating the merits of Zero Covid. This is largely similar to pro-Putin leftists attempting the justify his invasion of Ukraine. Always remember that the same values that you use to criticise Western countries should be used to criticise authoritarian regimes as well - opposing US militarism and racism, for example, is not incompatible with opposing China's acts of genocide and state suppression. If you want further info (and some good sardonic humour) on the absurd takes and misinfo from pro-China tankies, I would recommend checking out Brian Hioe in the links below.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a grass-roots protest made by people in China, who are putting their own lives at risk to demonstrate openly like this. There have already been so many acts of bravery by those who just want a better future for themselves and their country, and it is belittling and disingenuous to wave away everything they are doing as being just a "Western front" or a few "fringe extremists".

Links:

BBC live coverage page with links to analysis and articles

ABC (Australia) analysis

South China Morning Post analysis

Experts & Journalists to Check Out:

Brian Hioe - Journalist & China writer, New Bloom Magazine

Bonnie Glaser - China scholar, German Marshall Fund

Vicky Xu - Journalist & researcher, Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Stephen McDonnell - Journalist, BBC

M Taylor Fravel - China scholar, MIT

New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre - NZ's hub of China scholarship (I was fortunate to attend their conferences during my PhD there, they do great work!)

If you've reached the end I hope this helps with understanding what's going on right now! A lot of us who know friends and whanau in China are worried for their safety, so please spread the word and let's hope that there is something of a positive outcome ahead.

[centrally-unplanned]

what are your prescriptions for a poor country seeking to develop against a backdrop of young, weak institutions, tribal and/or ethnic loyalties, significant landmass/natural resources, and a history of recurring civil conflict (which may or may not be ongoing)

Man that's rough, you probably aren't going to develop - sorry about that! It's the rub of these things - conceptually development is not that hard. Robust markets and competitive exports and moving up the value chain and so on, it isn't a secret - the secret is getting institutions that support it, and if you are in the state you describe it is hard. I can certainly say "get buy-in from all stakeholders and usher in peace" but like, you knew that, easier said than done.

So my actual advice is to import a Chinese diaspora and let them build their own parallel structure of export-focused business enterprises, probably connecting back to the trade entrepots of mainland China, which they will do no matter how insane your civil conflict is. Then when the ebbs and tides of history do permit for an era of peace and cooperation you can more easily piggyback off the initial rungs they built. If it worked well enough for South East Asia, I don't see how it couldn't work for you.

[sgiandubh]

When you do not know a thing about the issue at stake...

...perhaps it's better to remain silent.

Some of you know, others don't - and that's fine - but my main field of expertise is labor law.

I just read this in anger and disbelief:

Look, lady. I don't care who the hell you are, what you do for a living or why you felt entitled to answer those insistent questions on your side of the fandom. I suppose you are North American and have no idea of how things work on this side of the pond. It is fine: I might know what a Congress filibuster is, for example, but I'd be severely unable to judge the finer points of competence sharing between Fed and state level.

The difference between you and me?

I keep my mouth shut and/or do my own research before opening it in public.

Have you no shame to write things like: 'It was discovered clothing factories in Bulgaria and Portugal made it and how workers were exploited, mostly women, because these factories were in special economic zones in these countries exempt from EU employee rights and regulations.'

HOW DARE YOU? What strange form of illiterate entitlement possessed you to utter such things with confidence, comfortably hidden behind a passive voice ('it was discovered')?

Portugal joined the EU in 1986. Bulgaria (and my country) joined the EU in 2007. I have given 5 relentless years of my life to make this collective political project a reality, along with hundreds of other people my age who chose to come back home from the West and put their skills to good use for their country. In doing so, I rejected more than 10 excellent corporate job offers in France and China. To see you come along and write such enormities is like having you spit in my face.

Article 4 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (aka The Treaty of Rome) is formal and clear, as far as competence sharing between the EU and its Member States goes (the UK was still, back then, a full member of the EU - it quit on February 1st 2020):

That means that ALL the EU regulations are being integrated into the national legislation of the Member States. This is not a copy/paste process, however. And because it is a shared competence area, the Member States have a larger margin of appreciation into making the EU rules a part of their own. While exceptions or delays in this process can be and are negotiated, the core principles are NEVER touched.

Read it one hundred times, madam, maybe you'll learn something today:

THERE ARE NO SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION. THE WHOLE FUCKING EUROPEAN UNION IS A SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONE, THIS IS WHY IT IS CALLED THE SINGLE MARKET.

What the fuck do you think we are, Guangzhou? We'd wish, seeing the growth statistics!

Now, for the textile industry sector and particularly with regard to the Bulgarian market, a case very similar to my own country. Starting around 1965, many big European textile players realized the competitive advantage of using the lower paid, readily available Eastern European workforce. In order to be able to do business with all those dour Communist regimes, the solution was simple and easy to find: toll manufacturing.

It worked (and still does!) like this:

The foreign partner brings its own designs, textiles and know-how into the mix - or more simply put, it outsources all these activities. The locals transform it into the finished product, using their own workforce. The result is then re-exported to the foreign partner, who labels it and sells it. In doing so, he has the legal obligation to include provenance on the label ('made in Romania', 'made in Indonesia', 'made in Bulgaria' - you name it).

The reason you might find less and less of those 'made in ' labels nowadays at Primark and more and more at Barbour, Moncler and the such is the constant raise of the workers' wages in Eastern Europe since 1990 (things happened there, in 1989, maybe you remember?). We are not competitive anymore for midrange prêt-à-porter - China (Shein, anyone?), Cambodia and Mexico do come to mind as better suppliers. To speak about 'exploited female labourers in rickety old factories' is an insult and a lie. They weren't exploited back in the Eighties, as they are not now (workers in those factories were and still are easily paid about 50% more than all the rest) and the factories being modernized and constantly updated was always a mandatory clause in any contract of the sort. Normal people in our countries rarely or ever saw those clothes. You had to either be lucky enough for a semi-confidential store release or bribe someone working there and willing to take the risk, in order to be able to buy the rejected models on the local market.

If I understood correctly, you place this critical episode at the launch of the limited SRH & Barbour collection, for the fall of 2018. How convenient for you, who (I am told by trusted people) were one of the most vocal critics of S during Hawaii 2.0!

And as far as Barbour goes, it never pretended to manufacture everything in the UK only:

This information is absolutely true. You can read the whole statement, signed in October 2017 by one of their Directors, Ian Sime, here: https://www.barbour.com/us/media/wysiwyg/PDF/Ethical_Statement_October_2017.pdf

And a snapshot for you:

Oh, and: SEDEX is a behemoth in its world, with more than 75.000 companies joining as a member (https://www.sedex.com/become-a-member/meet-our-customers/). Big corporations like TESCO, Dupont, Nestle, Sainsbury's or Unilever included.

I am not Bulgarian, but I know all of this way better than you'll probably ever do. The same type of contracts were common all over Eastern Europe: Romania, Poland, the GDR (that's East Berlin and co, for you) and even the Soviet Union. I am also sure your Portuguese readers will be thrilled to see themselves qualified by a patronizing North American as labor exploiters living in a third-world country with rickety factories.

You people have no shame and never did. But you just proved with trooping colors you also have no culture and no integrity. More reasons to not regret my unapologetic fandom choice.

I expect an angry and very, very vulgar answer to this, even if I chose to not include your name/handle. The stench of your irrelevance crossed an ocean.

[elbiotipo]

If you're from Argentina, you've probably heard about the Iberá wetlands, and you know the tourist pitch: a vast expanse of natural wonders in the middle of Corrientes, full of beautiful lapachos, cute carpinchos and yacarés, and now home to the fastest-growing wild yaguareté population, all with the unique Guaraní influenced culture of rural Corrientes.

Now, things aren't as shiny as they look, since the creation and management of the new national park is still a point of contention in many ways, but you will be suprised that this kind of thinking about the Iberá is very, very recent. Most people considered it an obstacle to progress, a big bunch of swamp in the middle of what could be a very productive ranching province. In a geography book from the 1910s (unfortunately I lost the screencap) it says something like "the biggest obstacle for the development of the province is this swamp, and it should be drained"

This took me to the other side of the world, to the Netherlands. They're known for land reclamation, from literally building their country from the sea. Especially when we're facing rising sea levels because of climate change, the Dutch seem like miracle workers, a look into our future. You will find no shortage of praise about how with some windmills and dams, the Dutch took land "from the sea", and turned it into quaint little polders, making a tiny country in Europe a food exporter and don't they look so nice? But when you look about it, you can barely find anything about what came before those polders. You have to dig and dig to find any mentions of not "sea", but of complex tidal marshes and wetlands, things I've learned are ecologically diverse and protected in many places, but you won't find people talking about that at all when talking about the Netherlands. It's all just polders now. What came before was useless swamp, or a sea to be triumphantly conquered. It's like they were erased from history

The use of that language reminded me of the failed vision of draining Iberá... and the triumphing vision in the Netherlands, and many other places. Maybe those wonderful places, those unique wetlands, would have been a footnote, you wouldn't find anything unless you were a bored ecologist who looked, and not even then. Now, far it be from me to accuse the medieval Dutch, who wanted to have more space to farm, of ecocide. And don't think this is going to be a rant against European ecological imperialism either, as the most anthropized places you can find are actually in China and India. But it does get me thinking.

I work with the concept of landscape, and landscape managing. (Not landscaping, those guys get better paid than me) The concept of landscape is somewhat similar to the concept of ecosystem you know from basic biology, but besides biotic and abiotic factors, you also have to involve cultural factors, that is, humans. There is not a single area of "pristine" untouched nature in the world, that is a myth. Humans have managed these landscapes for as long as they have lived in them. The Amazon, what many people think about when they think about "unspoilt" nature, has a high proportion of domesticated plants growing on it, which were and are still used by the people who live on it, and there once were great civilizations thriving on it. Forests and gardens leave their mark, so much that we can use them to find abandoned settlements. From hunter-gatherers tending and preserving the species vital to their survival in the tundra to engineers in Hong-Kong creating new islands for airports, every human culture has managed their natural resources, creating a landscape.

And this means these landscapes we enjoy are not natural creations. They are affected by natural enviroments; biomes do exist, species have a natural distribution. But they are created and managed by humans. Humans who decide what is valuable to them and what is not. The Dutch, seemingly, found the tidal marshes useless, and they created a new landscape, which changed the history of their nation forever. We here in modern Argentina changed our perception of Iberá, decided to take another approach, and now we made it a cherished part of our heritage, which will also speak about us in the future.

Ultimately, what is a useless swamp to be drained or a beautiful expanse of nature to be cherished depends in our culture, in us humans. We are the ones who manage and change ecosystems based in our economics, our culture, our society. This will become increasingly important, as climate change and ecological degradation becomes harsher and undeniable. We will have to decide what nature is worth to us. Think about what is it worth to you.