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'You can never become a Westerner:' China's top diplomat urges Japan and South Korea to align with Beijing and 'revitalize Asia' | CNN (edition.cnn.com)

submitted 1 year ago by RandAlThor@lemmy.ca to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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[-] seejur@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I'm from Europe, and no one here or in america considers Korea or Japan uncivilized or a "jungle". On the opposite, lots of weebs and kpop/kdrama fans all around.

Most of the world has moved over the concept of race, and political ideologies are what now unite people. And Korea and Japan, being democracies, belong with "western" democracies more than China. China knows this, and they try to play on feelings about race and geopraphy

[-] iridaniotter@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build – the three things together. And here, Bruges is maybe a good representation of beautiful things, intellectual life, wellbeing.

The rest of the world – and you know this very well, Federica – is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden." -High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell

Also my point is East Asian countries' proximity to Westernness is very conditional.

[-] seejur@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.

Notice the important word: Most.

Something makes me think that the use of Most in there instead of all is to include in the garden also other western countries that are indeed democracies, such as Canada, Australia and the US. AND Korea and Japan.

The context here is that garden is a synonym for democracy. And is undeniable that Western countries, while not perfect, have the least flawed democracies out there together with few other countries, such as Korea, Japan and very probably India (despite the later populist rhetoric, which is present in the US and some EU countries as well).

[-] iridaniotter@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 year ago

No. Actually, when you have a European calling most of the world a "jungle," they are quite obviously being racist.

[-] seejur@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I strongly disagree, considering that that are many other countries outside of the EU that are white. The whole American continent is such as example. So race is not the divider here, considering that half of the white population lives outside of the EU.

So either if it related to the government system of those countries, and the word most makes sense, or it would not make sense at all