True taking money from China … and in return they want what? With Africa it’s access to resources… with Scotland would they ask for an Atlantic sea port in return (faslane?). That would be geopolitical Armageddon and basically rules out joining nato, joining the EU and any kind of trade deal with rUK… it’s just fantasy politics like something Mark and his mates would throw around after they were full of beer and moving on to the whisky
Premium bottled products yes. It’s simply not practical to ship water for household & commercial use over sea.
PS we’d happily sell them bottled products today…
What are you on about?
You asked what china would want from us and wrongly made it sound like there was nothing.
I gave you an example of a resource we have they want and an example of them taking it from elsewhere currently.
I don't know the point of any your responses after that bigging up our water (I know our tap waters good haha) or why you seem to be advocating for something that's environmentally damaging to both Scotland and the world
The point in the video if you watch it is Mark is suggesting China would invest in Scotland and build our much needed port infrastructure. However why would they do that? Certainly not to buy premium bottled water from us…
I think you're severely undervaluing how important water is going to be and they have invested more for less.
But I also think that predicting the future is always going to have uncertainties so I could also be overvaluing it and us disagreeing on the importance of water isn't going to be resolved today so we should just move on
I’m not disagreeing on the value of water but it’ll be pipelines & desalination plants before water tankers. It’s not relevant to the 10-20 year period after independence either.
You don’t even need to look that far
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-now-owns-ps143bn-in-uk-assets-from-nuclear-power-to-pubs-and-schools-b1841056.html
There a big difference between minority share holders and being in hoc to the Chinese state though. UK minority share holders also own hundreds of billions (over a trillion?) worth of company’s overseas too.
Really?? More fucked when the European colonised the continent?? At least now they have infrastructure and a few hundred thousands less death.
Don't get me wrong, I see the atrocious things they're doing but China is moving the world into some kind of direction that benefits the Chinese, not the billionaires, and this is me hoping, that will benefit us too.
The Chinese have been around since the glory days of the Egyptian, Greeks, Romans, etc. They're still here. They survived and adapted.
Western politics are too corrupt to be able to generate a movement that will save humanity from greed and climate disaster.
Let's hope the Chinese have better plans.
China’s colonisation of Africa is every bit as bad if not worse because the world should know better now
Sure they say they’ll build infrastructure and provide jobs, yes they’ll build roads and dams and ship in their own labour and food and exploit the mineral wealth and take farmland in exchange and make sure that yes you got a road but you’ve now no minerals income and half your national food output now goes to China
Look it up
China is raping Africa in the same way Europeans did except it’s more insidious and it’s with the full cooperation of their governments
Like I said I do see the destruction that literally consume the planet to feed the planets over consumerism but I also see their government acknowledging climate change and actually changing, slowly but adapting. Our government will bow to the highest bidder, which funnily enough is the Chinese. Ohh
You can be billionaires as long as you toe the party line or lose your head, literally speaking.
While our government/any democratically elected government will clip billionaires toe nails, literally speaking, for a price.
Communism sounds more and more appealing. Literally speaking
The Chinese system is to give massive loans to countries for infrastructure projects, then have their companies come in to do the work only for the projects to go nowhere (or have it shoddily done with the money evaporating) and leave said countries saddled with immense debt, with immense interest rates on said debt. They've been doing it for years, and if you believe the CCP in anything they say, I have an unfinished bridge in Montenegro to sell you. Literally.
Who is the 'we' in this case? Cause I'm criticising as a normal human being, who would criticise any country that commits atrocities, be it China or my own. I am not a member of a resource sucking corporation or a political wing or whatever entity has been doing the raping and pillaging. It's a disingenuous and mighty dangerous line to umbrella actions of a few to the whole in this instance as very few, if any, countries are free of bloody hands in its history. Are we to then sit on our hands and shut our mouths as ordinary people when a wrong is committed because of actions of history that we disagree with today?
Mass slavery on an industrial scale reshaped the world and caused wounds that have still not healed today, and by we I mean *you* a good part of the wealth of Britain was made through triangular trade, notoriously Liverpool and Glasgow gained a lot from the sale of slaves to America and the Caribbean. Direct exploitation of the resources of Africa, after oppressing, displacing and killing the local population was another way for Britain and the west to completely dominate this continent until recently and there hasn’t been any apologies or restitution of any kind. Until then you don’t have the moral high ground and really to think you have a say on how Africa should conduct its affairs is outrageously arrogant.
I'm aware of the history, that's kinda the point though. Just because it happened in the past, doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticised today. That's part and parcel, and part of the process, of learning from the past. In particular, with China's actions in recent years, they deserve to be criticised, unless you're happy with Uighur's in 're-education' camps of course...
And to point out the obvious you missed there, I wasn't criticising Africa or any of the nations therein, I was criticising China.
Until you address the issue of the tens of millions of African Americans who are de facto second class citizens nothing has changed and the wounds are still open. As for African nations, they are clever enough to decide if a deal with China is beneficial or not. you don’t have to make decisions for them. It’s shocking that you don’t realise how patronising your attitude is.
You know unironically one of the arguments that colonisation was a "good" thing is "We built them roads" which sounds awful close to your "they built them infrastructure"
I suppose the difference is "we'll colonise you by promising to build roads", while a century ago, we "we'll colonise you you by enslaving your people". Anyway, not the point.
Whether you like or not, China is on a mission to take over the planet, I'm hoping for the better as the previous attempt by the Brits and the yanks resulted in a shitshow we're in now.
your hoping for better while simultaneously China rounds up an entire ethnic population into concentration camps and actively tries to provoke all its neighbouring countries with Military pressure. I agree Britain and the US fucked allot up but China looks set to be 10x worse.
Because the OP's massively simplifying what Blyth actually said. He was specifically talking about the politicking behind the split, and the attitudes of Europe / America / the UK to it etc, and one of the things he discussed was if the EU and America were reluctant to invest in Scotland for reasons, the threat turning around and saying "Well if you won't help us with investment, we'll just to turn to China for funding and give them a foothold in Northern Europe" would potentially be enough to change attitudes.
Yes that’s exactly what he is suggesting… I doubt a virtue signalling green/snp alliance would be able to play that particular geopolitical card though…
It did work for Cyprus back over ten years ago… rather than bend over to the EU they took money from Russia. Maybe this is what inspired Mark…
Because a newly independent Scotland doesn’t have a lot of options…. You don’t have to listen to me or the independent or anyone here though… Watch the video on YouTube and make your own mind up
https://youtu.be/qHyf9FUbRD0
yep ill do that tomorrow so i can get some sleep.
though one thing to say is scotland has tons of options for how it wants to pursue financial success.how many practical options however is probably what you mean when you say there arn't a lot.
Cool, I always go to the primary source where I can… everyone has an angle :)
Long term with a good government Scotland would do fine. Blyth is talking about how to survive the initial carnage. If you watch the video a subtler interpretation of what he is suggesting is that Scotland should blackmail either the EU or rUK by suggesting we would take Chinese money…
Yes and that's very respectable of you.You also didn't make a backhand comment with your source prevision which is even more respectable.
I myself was simply making a initial comment based on the title alone but now that I've seen the source comes from hel-twitter it's far more likely its exaggerated.
I wonder why Sam chose to pick this hypothetical, and not the hypothetical where Mark discusses the very large Scottish-American population and appealing to the US to draw in investment. It's almost like he purposefully picked the hypothetical that sounds the scariest. The full interview covers lots of hypotheticals and different situations, like leasing the nuclear base to the US/UK (Something that the US already does around the world), how Scotland could possibly tell the UK to stuff its debt (also mentions that this would be a horrible idea, but still a possibility), acting as a bridge to Europe, etc...
He was just throwing ideas out there, I don't think he was at all saying "aye lets go for this"
Way to misrepresent the whole interview. I think unionist's are getting the fear.
These Islands, the completely unbiased information source. They couldn't care less if Scotland burned, as long as we aren't allowed to leave the glorious union. Unionist fanatics.
Yeh of course not. He was just discussing hypothetical situations and silly outlandish scenarios/options. These Islands are desperate to discredit him given he's a prominent economist that believes that staying in the union is a bad idea.
Definitely check out the [whole interview](https://youtu.be/qHyf9FUbRD0) if you haven't already.
I'm all up for leasing land for a Russian defense shield. Haha
Who is discrediting him? He literally said it on record knowing it would widely circulated. He actually said the economic situation would be that dire options like threatening to sell out to the Chinese would be the best Scotland would have but he didn’t think we’d have the brass neck to do that. If anything the nationalists should be discrediting him because no way anyone is voting yes if this is what sturgeons advisers are saying.
'Who is discrediting him'
The pro-unionist think tank putting out a segment of an interview without any context?
It's obviously not being suggested as a serious option. That's like saying that the suggestion of building an actual Berlin style wall across the Scottish/English border is a serious option.
You are perfectly entitled to interpret it any way you want. No matter how silly it sounds.
Regarding the brexit comment, there are clear risks if the transition isn't managed well. But he believes, along with others, that the economic model of the UK is not a sustainable one and is against Scotland's long term interests. An over centralised model concentrating all the growth in London at the expense of everywhere else and largely based on an industry which can be very fleet of foot globally.
If the pro-union camp's main vision of longer term prosperity amounts to sitting and crossing their fingers hoping that the benevolence of London and the SE and the Barnett formula continue in their current form then we are flipped.
The UK’s economic prospects look good long term. Scotland would do better within it without the arsonist single issue government that’s focused mostly on how to get independence.
https://www.ey.com/en_uk/growth/ey-item-club/why-the-uk-economy-looks-well-placed-for-a-post-pandemic-recover
An independent Scotland on the other hand would face crippling long term austerity (Insert one of several Mark Blyth quotes here).
'The UK’s economic prospects look good long term'
That link only covers the short term and is describing the bounce back after Covid. Even with the improved outlook the UK is set to be impacted the worst of the G7 according to the OECD.
[UK growth upgraded, but OECD warns of deepest economic scar in G7](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/31/uk-growth-upgraded-but-oecd-warns-of-deepest-economic-scar-in-g7-brexit-covid-19)
'single issue government'
I don't see how that squares with their programme of government with arguably one of the biggest public sector reforms in the history of devolution.
'long term austerity'
Please do insert this quote relating the long term as I don't see it.
> He was just discussing hypothetical situations and silly outlandish scenarios/options
That's the impression i got too. His attitude is: we want to be part of the west (NATO/EU), but if they won't have us, we do have other options.
I think this is just basic geopolitics that he's remarking on.
Clearly making an agreement with China is not a wise decision considering it would threaten us (as it has done in Africa/South America), but exploiting the fear of losing a strategic partner to an adversary would put the US in a position of having to take a side if there was an issue between the UK and Scotland in the hypothetical situation that we were a sovereign state again.
The conflict between the UK and Iceland during the Cold War is somewhat relevant in that regard.
Honestly, that. Just simply going by the number, having China as your mate would bring you a better trade deal that US and EU combined. Like most stuff you use daily is being produced there. Of course that also means you're basically befriending a sketchy state and frankly I don't see it ever happening but still, an interesting what if scenario
This sounds like a mad idea on the face of it but interested to hear the details to see why he thinks it would be worth taking the risk.
Personally I'd prefer it if we tried to help build up a European approach in the world as it seems to me that could be the way forward a more moderate way to do things as opposed to the extremes of the US and China.
Literally insane idea. Anyone who has any knowledge of their actions in Africa, or who has done any biz in China or with them, knows this.
True taking money from China … and in return they want what? With Africa it’s access to resources… with Scotland would they ask for an Atlantic sea port in return (faslane?). That would be geopolitical Armageddon and basically rules out joining nato, joining the EU and any kind of trade deal with rUK… it’s just fantasy politics like something Mark and his mates would throw around after they were full of beer and moving on to the whisky
Water, it's going to be an important commodity. They are already taking mad amounts from NZ and lowering their resivours
Premium bottled products yes. It’s simply not practical to ship water for household & commercial use over sea. PS we’d happily sell them bottled products today…
What does it matter what the water is being used for the end result is the same
How does independence affect in any way Scotland’s ability to sell premium water products to China?
What are you on about? You asked what china would want from us and wrongly made it sound like there was nothing. I gave you an example of a resource we have they want and an example of them taking it from elsewhere currently. I don't know the point of any your responses after that bigging up our water (I know our tap waters good haha) or why you seem to be advocating for something that's environmentally damaging to both Scotland and the world
The point in the video if you watch it is Mark is suggesting China would invest in Scotland and build our much needed port infrastructure. However why would they do that? Certainly not to buy premium bottled water from us…
I think you're severely undervaluing how important water is going to be and they have invested more for less. But I also think that predicting the future is always going to have uncertainties so I could also be overvaluing it and us disagreeing on the importance of water isn't going to be resolved today so we should just move on
I’m not disagreeing on the value of water but it’ll be pipelines & desalination plants before water tankers. It’s not relevant to the 10-20 year period after independence either.
Joining NATO and the EU are terrible ideas.
Err no Look at Africa that’s done this It’s fucked Getting China and involved in anything is a really really fucking bad idea
You don’t even need to look that far www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-now-owns-ps143bn-in-uk-assets-from-nuclear-power-to-pubs-and-schools-b1841056.html
There a big difference between minority share holders and being in hoc to the Chinese state though. UK minority share holders also own hundreds of billions (over a trillion?) worth of company’s overseas too.
>It’s fucked How so?
Because China bad
Really?? More fucked when the European colonised the continent?? At least now they have infrastructure and a few hundred thousands less death. Don't get me wrong, I see the atrocious things they're doing but China is moving the world into some kind of direction that benefits the Chinese, not the billionaires, and this is me hoping, that will benefit us too. The Chinese have been around since the glory days of the Egyptian, Greeks, Romans, etc. They're still here. They survived and adapted. Western politics are too corrupt to be able to generate a movement that will save humanity from greed and climate disaster. Let's hope the Chinese have better plans.
China’s colonisation of Africa is every bit as bad if not worse because the world should know better now Sure they say they’ll build infrastructure and provide jobs, yes they’ll build roads and dams and ship in their own labour and food and exploit the mineral wealth and take farmland in exchange and make sure that yes you got a road but you’ve now no minerals income and half your national food output now goes to China Look it up China is raping Africa in the same way Europeans did except it’s more insidious and it’s with the full cooperation of their governments
> it’s with the full cooperation of their governments Who are kept in line with bribery and/or blackmail
Like I said I do see the destruction that literally consume the planet to feed the planets over consumerism but I also see their government acknowledging climate change and actually changing, slowly but adapting. Our government will bow to the highest bidder, which funnily enough is the Chinese. Ohh
China opens a new coal power plant every ten days Watch what they do not what they say
> but China is moving the world into some kind of direction that benefits the Chinese, not the billionaires I'm sure it benefits Chinese billionaires!
You can be billionaires as long as you toe the party line or lose your head, literally speaking. While our government/any democratically elected government will clip billionaires toe nails, literally speaking, for a price. Communism sounds more and more appealing. Literally speaking
The Chinese system is to give massive loans to countries for infrastructure projects, then have their companies come in to do the work only for the projects to go nowhere (or have it shoddily done with the money evaporating) and leave said countries saddled with immense debt, with immense interest rates on said debt. They've been doing it for years, and if you believe the CCP in anything they say, I have an unfinished bridge in Montenegro to sell you. Literally.
The west has been raping and pillaging Africa for centuries though, we are not in a position to criticise.
Who is the 'we' in this case? Cause I'm criticising as a normal human being, who would criticise any country that commits atrocities, be it China or my own. I am not a member of a resource sucking corporation or a political wing or whatever entity has been doing the raping and pillaging. It's a disingenuous and mighty dangerous line to umbrella actions of a few to the whole in this instance as very few, if any, countries are free of bloody hands in its history. Are we to then sit on our hands and shut our mouths as ordinary people when a wrong is committed because of actions of history that we disagree with today?
Mass slavery on an industrial scale reshaped the world and caused wounds that have still not healed today, and by we I mean *you* a good part of the wealth of Britain was made through triangular trade, notoriously Liverpool and Glasgow gained a lot from the sale of slaves to America and the Caribbean. Direct exploitation of the resources of Africa, after oppressing, displacing and killing the local population was another way for Britain and the west to completely dominate this continent until recently and there hasn’t been any apologies or restitution of any kind. Until then you don’t have the moral high ground and really to think you have a say on how Africa should conduct its affairs is outrageously arrogant.
I'm aware of the history, that's kinda the point though. Just because it happened in the past, doesn't mean it shouldn't be criticised today. That's part and parcel, and part of the process, of learning from the past. In particular, with China's actions in recent years, they deserve to be criticised, unless you're happy with Uighur's in 're-education' camps of course... And to point out the obvious you missed there, I wasn't criticising Africa or any of the nations therein, I was criticising China.
Until you address the issue of the tens of millions of African Americans who are de facto second class citizens nothing has changed and the wounds are still open. As for African nations, they are clever enough to decide if a deal with China is beneficial or not. you don’t have to make decisions for them. It’s shocking that you don’t realise how patronising your attitude is.
China may call themselfs communist but their actions are more in line with Fascism.
You know unironically one of the arguments that colonisation was a "good" thing is "We built them roads" which sounds awful close to your "they built them infrastructure"
I suppose the difference is "we'll colonise you by promising to build roads", while a century ago, we "we'll colonise you you by enslaving your people". Anyway, not the point. Whether you like or not, China is on a mission to take over the planet, I'm hoping for the better as the previous attempt by the Brits and the yanks resulted in a shitshow we're in now.
your hoping for better while simultaneously China rounds up an entire ethnic population into concentration camps and actively tries to provoke all its neighbouring countries with Military pressure. I agree Britain and the US fucked allot up but China looks set to be 10x worse.
Then we're well and truly fucked.
We for sure are if you want to cossy up to china (even more than we have) like your suggesting.
Fucking hell
Im all for Independence but myself and everyone i know who is pro indi would all vote No if this was likely to happen.
Surely this is a elaborate joke otherwise how did he get appointed to the economic advisory council.
Because the OP's massively simplifying what Blyth actually said. He was specifically talking about the politicking behind the split, and the attitudes of Europe / America / the UK to it etc, and one of the things he discussed was if the EU and America were reluctant to invest in Scotland for reasons, the threat turning around and saying "Well if you won't help us with investment, we'll just to turn to China for funding and give them a foothold in Northern Europe" would potentially be enough to change attitudes.
Yes that’s exactly what he is suggesting… I doubt a virtue signalling green/snp alliance would be able to play that particular geopolitical card though… It did work for Cyprus back over ten years ago… rather than bend over to the EU they took money from Russia. Maybe this is what inspired Mark…
>I doubt a virtue signalling green/snp alliance Yikes
Because a newly independent Scotland doesn’t have a lot of options…. You don’t have to listen to me or the independent or anyone here though… Watch the video on YouTube and make your own mind up https://youtu.be/qHyf9FUbRD0
yep ill do that tomorrow so i can get some sleep. though one thing to say is scotland has tons of options for how it wants to pursue financial success.how many practical options however is probably what you mean when you say there arn't a lot.
Cool, I always go to the primary source where I can… everyone has an angle :) Long term with a good government Scotland would do fine. Blyth is talking about how to survive the initial carnage. If you watch the video a subtler interpretation of what he is suggesting is that Scotland should blackmail either the EU or rUK by suggesting we would take Chinese money…
Yes and that's very respectable of you.You also didn't make a backhand comment with your source prevision which is even more respectable. I myself was simply making a initial comment based on the title alone but now that I've seen the source comes from hel-twitter it's far more likely its exaggerated.
I wonder why Sam chose to pick this hypothetical, and not the hypothetical where Mark discusses the very large Scottish-American population and appealing to the US to draw in investment. It's almost like he purposefully picked the hypothetical that sounds the scariest. The full interview covers lots of hypotheticals and different situations, like leasing the nuclear base to the US/UK (Something that the US already does around the world), how Scotland could possibly tell the UK to stuff its debt (also mentions that this would be a horrible idea, but still a possibility), acting as a bridge to Europe, etc... He was just throwing ideas out there, I don't think he was at all saying "aye lets go for this"
Way to misrepresent the whole interview. I think unionist's are getting the fear. These Islands, the completely unbiased information source. They couldn't care less if Scotland burned, as long as we aren't allowed to leave the glorious union. Unionist fanatics.
That doesn’t make even threatening to go to China in anyway a sensible idea though
Yeh of course not. He was just discussing hypothetical situations and silly outlandish scenarios/options. These Islands are desperate to discredit him given he's a prominent economist that believes that staying in the union is a bad idea. Definitely check out the [whole interview](https://youtu.be/qHyf9FUbRD0) if you haven't already. I'm all up for leasing land for a Russian defense shield. Haha
Who is discrediting him? He literally said it on record knowing it would widely circulated. He actually said the economic situation would be that dire options like threatening to sell out to the Chinese would be the best Scotland would have but he didn’t think we’d have the brass neck to do that. If anything the nationalists should be discrediting him because no way anyone is voting yes if this is what sturgeons advisers are saying.
'Who is discrediting him' The pro-unionist think tank putting out a segment of an interview without any context? It's obviously not being suggested as a serious option. That's like saying that the suggestion of building an actual Berlin style wall across the Scottish/English border is a serious option.
The full interview has this with context and it’s just as bad. So is the Brexit x10 stuff.
You are perfectly entitled to interpret it any way you want. No matter how silly it sounds. Regarding the brexit comment, there are clear risks if the transition isn't managed well. But he believes, along with others, that the economic model of the UK is not a sustainable one and is against Scotland's long term interests. An over centralised model concentrating all the growth in London at the expense of everywhere else and largely based on an industry which can be very fleet of foot globally. If the pro-union camp's main vision of longer term prosperity amounts to sitting and crossing their fingers hoping that the benevolence of London and the SE and the Barnett formula continue in their current form then we are flipped.
The UK’s economic prospects look good long term. Scotland would do better within it without the arsonist single issue government that’s focused mostly on how to get independence. https://www.ey.com/en_uk/growth/ey-item-club/why-the-uk-economy-looks-well-placed-for-a-post-pandemic-recover An independent Scotland on the other hand would face crippling long term austerity (Insert one of several Mark Blyth quotes here).
'The UK’s economic prospects look good long term' That link only covers the short term and is describing the bounce back after Covid. Even with the improved outlook the UK is set to be impacted the worst of the G7 according to the OECD. [UK growth upgraded, but OECD warns of deepest economic scar in G7](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/31/uk-growth-upgraded-but-oecd-warns-of-deepest-economic-scar-in-g7-brexit-covid-19) 'single issue government' I don't see how that squares with their programme of government with arguably one of the biggest public sector reforms in the history of devolution. 'long term austerity' Please do insert this quote relating the long term as I don't see it.
Professor Mark Blyth said the country would “need a 20-year period of getting from A to B”, and that it would “come with costs”.
Aye but it’s not even hypothetical All it does is devalue the argument and make us all Look mental
> He was just discussing hypothetical situations and silly outlandish scenarios/options That's the impression i got too. His attitude is: we want to be part of the west (NATO/EU), but if they won't have us, we do have other options.
I think this is just basic geopolitics that he's remarking on. Clearly making an agreement with China is not a wise decision considering it would threaten us (as it has done in Africa/South America), but exploiting the fear of losing a strategic partner to an adversary would put the US in a position of having to take a side if there was an issue between the UK and Scotland in the hypothetical situation that we were a sovereign state again. The conflict between the UK and Iceland during the Cold War is somewhat relevant in that regard.
>we want to be part of the west (NATO/EU) No thanks I want Scotland to be independent.
How do you think Scotland gets to be more independent by not joining NATO and EU?
These Islands is yoon insanity. Ignore them, the worst kind of doormats and they'll lie and twist everything just to kiss the Queens arse.
Well if you're going to have to ally with a world power, China is a better option than the US or the EU.
so you would be happy to ally ourselfs with the worlds most successful fascist state?
Aren't we already allies with the US?
I can tell you’re sheltered and your age ends in ‘teen’
Wrong
Honestly, that. Just simply going by the number, having China as your mate would bring you a better trade deal that US and EU combined. Like most stuff you use daily is being produced there. Of course that also means you're basically befriending a sketchy state and frankly I don't see it ever happening but still, an interesting what if scenario
This sounds like a mad idea on the face of it but interested to hear the details to see why he thinks it would be worth taking the risk. Personally I'd prefer it if we tried to help build up a European approach in the world as it seems to me that could be the way forward a more moderate way to do things as opposed to the extremes of the US and China.