[mtgx]

It's only a shame that it has to be a country like China that rises up at US' expense, rather than say Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, etc. What happens to global human rights when it's China that has an oversized influence on world politics and when countries start easily accepting extraditions to China (say for criticizing the Chinese leader, which could be a crime there), and many other outcomes like that?

US' track record isn't stellar, especially over the past 2 decades, and in the past decade the US has also taken a backseat in terms of actually protecting humans rights, even during Obama's time, but at least if you discount US' human rights violations in the Middle East, the US has been rather neutral on human rights (read: not positive) elsewhere. China may actually turn things to a negative trend for human rights everywhere else.

The UK under David Cameron had already started to use China as a role model for domestic censorship and surveillance. If China's influence grows, I imagine many other countries will follow UK's lead.

[herbst]

> but at least if you discount US' human rights violations in the Middle East

Can we not just discount the issues with china then as well?

I think the one big difference here is that nobody expects china to invade their country, violate human rights within their own country or put pressure on their local politics for various reasons (other than random trade agreements maybe).

All things nearly everyone pretty much expects from the U.S. at this point.

[cageface]

China has figured out that economic invasion is a lot cheaper and more effective than bombing. Sadly the US still seems to be a long way from learning this lesson.

But if you think China doesn't exert pressure in other countries' politics you haven't spent much time in Asia, particularly SE Asia.

[mtanski]

The favorite method of centrist leadership in the recent past has been exporting neoliberalization economic policies and the neoliberalizm of trade deals (think NAFTA).

That's one of the component that's given the US a lot of influence and power dealing with the world. This was aided by how inward the competing powers were.

There's been a backlash against those ideas as foreign policy both inside and outside the US. As evidenced by the current president.

It's my hunch that in the long run the US will miss the privilege and benefits that have come from that asymmetric relationship. 4 or 8 years can be a long time and a lot can happen when were standing still.

Just look at England, they've never fully come to grips that the sun has set on the English empire.

[herbst]

Probably not long enough, but long enough to know that the chinese are most buying and building things other than invading (even less killing) for new wealth in other countries. At least in the last ~10 years or so.

[kuschku]

We only have ourselves to blame for that. Had we actually created a federal Europe, we would have been the ones profiting off of this.

Now, instead, it's China, and we're still not getting anywhere.

[foepys]

You cannot just "create" a federal Europe. This naive view is why the Middle East is in a constant state of looming (civil) war. British and French colonists drew state lines without considering tribes and cultures and now those tribes are fighting over control in countries they don't even want to be a part of.

[GlobalFrog]

To be fair, and without denying all the crimes and exploitation made by European countries in their colonies, we don't have to forget that a lot of those places had tribes/clans/countries that were waging wars again each others and the European countries profited of this by allying first with one side to defeat the other. When the colonies were disbanded, the tribes/clans/countries often resumed fights what were interrupted. When a country was really united, it had its chances to oppose an invader : look at Ethiopia who won against Italy in 1895/1896 and would have won again in 1935/1936 if Germany hadn't come to win for them. So yes, the British and French mostly drew lines based on french/english negociation, sometimes based on the geography, sometimes just for geometrical and area reasons, and that played its part in the later wars once colonies were over, but that is hardly the only reason, and it is not even the main reason I think. At the moment, in the Middle-East, the fight between people is either for religious reasons (Sunni vs Shia mostly), for clans supremacy and oil (look at the Qatar situation now), or for "I was there first"/"God is on my side" reasons (Israel vs Palestine). The borders created by the colonists played their part, but the mix of population in my opinion is such that those points above would have triggered wars wherever borders had been drawn. So in the end, I agree with you: one cannot "create" a federal state. It is incredibly difficult with countries in peace and having strong relations (like Europe), and the other successful examples are based on war : the first emperor of China united through war by defeating the warring states (and China, even if an authoritarian state centralized for politics is quite federal regarding other aspects), the US created themselves by invading the native tribes state by state. Had Napoleon succeeded, maybe Europe would have been a federative state, at the cost of many wars and deaths also.

[kuschku]

The alternative is China controlling everything, and us being delegated to the back benches.

I'd rather fight with the other european countries over such small details than live in a world ruled by an autocratic China.

[jacobush]

The Balkan wars were fought over such small details. It could easiliy go badly in Europe at large (again...) and then China would gain from that situation too. Do you think they would be too shy to help some warring faction or other? They tried in Yugoslavia and that was back in the 90s!

[emodendroket]

I don't think it's wrong to say that that was the original goal of the EU though.

[orf]

How would you propose this is done? A ballot across all countries would fail. No ballot would be undemocratic.

[kuschku]

Start with informing the public, until a ballot would succeed?

Most of the people being against the EU are against it because they only ever hear the bad sides? They never realize that most of the bad things "the EU" did were actually things the council did. Which actually just means that the heads of states of all EU nations agreed on it. If you end the EU, all power goes to these negotiations, and you'll only see that bullshit.

In turn, almost all the advances in civil rights that the EU courts and parliament have given us is attributed by the media to the national governments.

Start off with replacing this propaganda, and you'll have broad support for the EU very soon.

[dingaling]

> Start off with replacing this propaganda

It sounds like you just want to substitute another set of propaganda .

Many people were quite happy to establish a European Common Market.

Few had a direct input to moving that to Union.

So first you'd need to turn the clock back 40 years and explain why anything deeper than a market is necessary.

[kuschku]

> So first you'd need to turn the clock back 40 years and explain why anything deeper than a market is necessary.

I think that’s pretty obvious, when you’re trying to compete with China or the US head-on, isn’t it?

Do you really think "just a market" of european nations will ever be able to stand alone on the world stage, being able to negotiate on eye level with another superpower?

Do you think we will be able to get our own Silicon Valley ever, when startups have to deal with 28 tax laws, 28 consumer laws, 28 different languages, 28 different regulations for everything? No European startup has ever actually managed that. They always first expand in their home country, and then to the US or China – the largest unified markets with unified laws and unified languages, where they can grow better. And companies starting in those markets always have an advantage.

Do you think in "just a market", our legislatives and executives would ever have been able to regulate companies as large as Google? Companies so large that if you ban them from your country, half your country’s productivity is lost over night? If you try to regulate them when you’re just Denmark, Google will just stop running in your country. No European country alone would be powerful enough to regulate such large multinationals anymore. Only together are we large enough that these multinationals have to cave.

Do you think negotiating a separate treaty for each of the things we currently do via EU law would be better? Treaties take years to negotiate, and will run for decades. You can’t just replace them, or change them. On the other hand, every 4 years we can just replace all EU institutions, and the parliamentarians, and change policy. This allows a much more democratic decision process.

[sgift]

Telling facts is not "another set of propaganda", so we can start with that part first. Then we can go to the points which are more opinion-based and present multiple sides. The first part alone should be enough to ease many fears.

That aside: It isn't undemocratic to not do a ballot. In a parliamentary democracy parliaments can decide most things themselves (even all, depending on the country). That's what they get elected for in the first place.

[richardknop]

So you’d repeat the Irish and Dutch fiascos where you would have every nation vote until they vote yes? Seems undemocratic.

[DoveBrown]

If you're talking about the Irish referendum's on Lisbon, it wasn't a vote until you said yes. The Irish initially voted no for many reasons but I can tell you that my parents voted no on the first one because they felt they didn't understand why it was needed and weren't sure what the implications of it were.

After the No vote, the government made a much larger effort to explain to the public what Lisbon did and they got guarantees from the EU as to interpretation of wording.

I think you could kuschku's suggestion that you need to get the population of each state on board before progressing. The turnout for the 2nd vote on Lisbon (which was a yes) went up to 59% from 53%. Looking at the vote from outside, it definitely seemed like people were much more engaged in the second vote than they were in the first.

I don't know why repeated votes would be undemocratic. There is absolutely no suggestion that the second vote was fraudulent. You're allowed to ask the same question of the population again once more information is available.

[vim_wannabe]

There is no end to Federalist greed for power, is there...

[kuschku]

So you'd rather be subject to an autocratic Chinese world order than participate in a federalist Europe? Now that's an interesting view...

If you really object to a federal Europe that much, I suggest you offer a better solution for how Europe can compete on the world stage with China and the US in the future, and do so successfully.

[NicoJuicy]

That one is easy now, human rights and middle class.

People willing to work will have a lot less problems in Europe than anywhere else. Even when falling suddenly ill