谁是中国真的朋友？/Who are China's Real Friends? [EN only]

Day 699, 01:27 • Published in Iran China • by pyroelectricity

中国，谁是你真的朋友？
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
-Dom Helder Camara

This is one of my favorite quotes. As an RL American, I’m still taught that Communism is evil. Yet when I saw this quote, it really struck me that addressing the problem is considered saintly while addressing the cause is considered evil.
I thought of it again tonight, and something else about it struck me. Something that, in fact, has nothing to do with communism and everything with democracy, and is quite relevant to a recent event in the game that is rather obscure to most. I say that it’s time it took its rightful place in the spotlight.

“When I give an MPP to the meek, they call me a liberator. When I ask why the meek have no MPPs, they call me a troll.”

Of course, if you’re too busy attacking the cause to address the problem, the problem will continue to grow. Example: If you’re busy getting a food stamps program started and everyone stops giving food to the poor, the poor will not have enough money to feed themselves (hence the definition of poverty) and may starve. Or in eRepublik terms, if you’re busy addressing why a country suddenly has 4 MPPs when before they had none so you forget to offer your own MPP, the MPPs will expire and the suddenly vulnerable country may tempt an invasion from a vengeful neighbor *cough* Iran *cough*.

Less than two weeks ago, China was without MPPs. They had recently joined Peace’s training war.
Over a period of 3 days, China gained 4 MPPs with relatively large countries: France, the UK, the USA, and Romania. If China were a large country and a member of an alliance, (Sol doesn’t count) this wouldn’t be too out of the ordinary. A couple MPPs may just have been set to expire within a few days of each other, and would need to be renewed.

But China isn’t in an alliance. China is neutral, and maintains good relations with both Eden(Atlantis) and Peace. Throughout their history, they have been so neutral I would even go as far as to call them the Switzerland of eRepublik.

Several weeks ago, Iran offered to sign an MPP with China. China carefully considered the proposition, but in the end politely declined.
China’s refusal had nothing to do with Iran’s stance toward China, but was instead a refusal to be a Peace pawn once again. At that time, WWIII had already reached its peak in North America, and was winding down in Scandinavia. The next front could easily have been Korea. During the war, the Theocrats (who are now in South Korea) and the North Koreans had helped the USA, by signing MPPs in the Theocrats’ case or attempting to block Russia and sacrificing themselves in North Korea’s case.
Peace was visibly pissed at both Koreas. They wanted revenge, but hadn’t yet attacked South Korea, the home of Theocracy. If China signed an MPP with Iran, Indonesia, one of the most powerful members of Peace, could attack China under the pretense of a wargame. Even with Iran “fighting,” Indonesia would still overcome China combined with Iran easily.

They had two options of paths to Korea. They could go Henan -> Shandong -> Gyeonggi, or they could go Beijing -> and then region swapped Liaoning -> Pyongan ->Kangwon, which would also leave them open to attack Gyeonggi.
The obvious decision would be the first path. There would be fewer regions to go through. That means less gold spent and less things that can go wrong.

But there are benefits to the latter of the two paths. Beijing is the capital of China, and at the time was the only region in China with a Q5 Hospital. With a population over 2000, it would be very expensive to attack. (Coincidentally, Shandong was and is the only Q4 hospital in China, and the only other hospital above Q1 at the time.) However, Beijing has high oil and grain. Indonesia would recoup the costs of the attack through taxes on local companies within a few months.

Liaoning happens to be a high iron region, the only one left in Iran. Peace wouldn’t have hesitated to order Iran to give it to Indonesia. With a population near 1200 at the time, it would also be expensive to attack. However, it would be a region swap assuming that Iran would be cooperative. If not, Indonesia would attack it anyway, since Iran without any MPPs is powerless against Indonesia.

From there, they could region swap their way to Gyeonggi. Like in Beijing, Indonesia would recoup the costs of the attack on Liaoning within months through the boost their economy would receive from gaining control of a third high iron region.

Well, when I was in China, there was something I would always say:
“Beijing is China.”

Beijing is a valuable region. It’s about equivalent to California if you want to think in terms of American regions. But for China, it means so much more. It’s the only high resource region China has controlled since the Iranian invasion in January, and their only high grain and oil. It’s a developed region, and Indonesia taking it would be fatal to eChina as a whole.
Even if Indonesia decided to go through Shandong instead, it would still be a blow to China. China had been through enough abuse by Peace already.

China would have none of it, so they turned straight to Iran and said “Nuts!”

Well then Iran got pissed and threatened to invade China. The President of China, aliao, not being suicidal, resolved to obtain some MPPs. In the end, she got 4: UK, USA, France, and Romania. (Yes, aliao is a she)

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to completely disregard the UK. If Iran were to actually attack China, an MPP with the UK would be useless.

The debate area of the USA’s proposal leads to the somewhat famous (and ever-intimidating) Chinese Military Parade. It’s a fairly normal thing for the USA to link to youtube for just about everything as opposed to a forum link. It’s a rational thing to do considering that they prevote on every proposal before it is proposed ingame. If they link to youtube, it just means that they’ve approved it already and that it will pass. (There are exceptions to this rule, but it doesn’t belong in a discussion about China)

France’s debate area link leads to a public thread on their forum. Google translate link: http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.erepublik.fr%2Fviewtopic.php%3Ff%3D86%26t%3D8784&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0=

So France has shown their intentions. Like Serbia, France is not truly China’s friend. They signed the MPP because they wanted to avoid pushing China to join Eden. They also talk about China asking for help with planning a baby boom. Well, if I were China, I wouldn’t be asking France how to have a baby boom, because we all know how that went.

Peace tries to act like they care about countries like China.
Of course if Peace really cared about China they would have Hungary or Indonesia sign the MPP, or maybe Russia. Russia has been friendly to China; in fact, they recently closed their open war. But of course Peace doesn’t care about China, so France and the UK sign MPPs with China.

Finally, there is Romania. Despite my location in Spain and Chinese citizenship, I am eRomanian. Not only am I eRomanian, I am the Romanian ambassador to China. When I speak, I speak on behalf of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Romania cares about China. We have no need for region swaps or resources or a puppet. We have no need for more regions , no desire to influence China’s policy, no ulterior motives in our relationship with China. What we want is friendship. We are sympathetic for China, after all the Peace TOs they have gone through. We feel that China is a good friend and dependable ally to have. We love China, even before this massive future baby boom the French were talking about.
We care for China. And that’s why we signed the MPP.

We are a true friend to China. 我们是 中国真 的朋友。

For too long, China has been held back by the restraints of TO, population, and ignorance. It’s time for the dragon to bear its claws.

We stand by China.
(~-pyroelectricity-~)


Always look on the bright side of life.
Energizer bunny arrested, charged with battery.
御剣令治，我 知道日本是 中国真的朋 友。
我是 了一个游戏 。
打倒巨 车， 中国 万岁。
我 的笔丢了。
你会看这 个吗？
你 没有生活。 （哈哈，不 好意思）
洛杉矶比伦 敦很美。
End Chinese rant that makes little to no sense.
btw kosovo is uruguay
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/who-are-your-real-friends--986476/1/20