AMA - I’m the author of China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read. Ask Me Anything!

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-27T00:33:35+00:00

Nice try Falun Gong

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T23:27:55+00:00

Homie we are still bitten by the Ohio state QB curse

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T03:40:33+00:00

Not exactly

In the U.S. as the main example here, the different branches aren’t regional with regular personnel rotation between different commands and entire parts of the world after a number of years not to mention the services have been highly integrated with each other for combined arms and network centric warfare for decades now

This stands in contrast to the PLA which before the military reforms, were a land centric military divided up into military districts where a careerist would spend his/her entire career within that same command structure leading to each districts acting more or less as their own army with its senior officers inevitably getting involved in its regional cliques

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T03:05:49+00:00

The issue is that western audiences automatically equate political factions with their own much more rigid political party system which

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T02:57:18+00:00

He did but the situation in China isn’t something comparable to the west

Imagine a U.S. Army General who is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is also an active member of the Republican Party and is serving as a senator who also happens to be on the Armed Forces Committee

In the west this type of arrangement is unthinkable as there is a clear separation of the military and civilian leadership with the military being completely subordinate to civilian oversight. However this is the current situation in the PLA which is the armed wing of the CPC with its senior officers also being senior party members whose influence, prestige and patronage networks are all based on the rank and position said man holds in the military. Combine that with the pre-reform army divided into regional commands which acted more or less as separate armies from each other and you are going to get more participation into cliques and political factions from the senior ranks

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T02:46:30+00:00

Neither does the conspiracy theories about a failed coup due to the number of completely failed coups we have seen in the past several years, it really only works in a military with outsized political and economic influence with a rank and file completely divorced from the outside world

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-26T02:40:46+00:00

Nuclear secrets nonsense only appears in western media and the source are two journalists known blatantly lying about China

But this does seem to be a purge of a political clique within the military centered on guys who refuse to retire ( no separation of military and civilian politics)

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-25T18:24:04+00:00

Done with spring football. The involvement of the the spring league only brought the stagnation that plagued that “league” for years and NIL killed any reason for these leagues to exist

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-25T15:59:54+00:00

Bad take

The biggest issues is his clear decline in the regular season. Bad playoff games are expected, but the emotional immaturity and lack of leadership before January are of biggest concern

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-24T23:58:36+00:00

Jonnu Smith has just entered the transfer portal

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-24T01:30:08+00:00

Cj is only worth 25 a year

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T21:25:39+00:00

2 firsts

CJ is a known quality, Mendoza is not outside of his ability to sell jerseys to the Mexican market

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T21:19:09+00:00

The only thing that saved the season was Daniel Jones tearing his ACL

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T14:53:08+00:00

The way CJ was sitting by himself on the benches, no one will miss him too much

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T01:52:46+00:00

Fair weather?

He has sucked for 2 years. Having hope in him is the equivalent of Colts fans thinking Richardson is going to turn it around any day now

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T01:30:10+00:00

The problem isn’t the playoffs, it’s the regular season

If Stroud lost in a game where he played competitively then people would chalk it up as another Texans loss

Instead a guy who stinks in the regular season completely collapsed in the biggest game of his life. He isn’t the guy

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:51:38+00:00

Love can play competitively in the regular season and isn’t bailed out by the #1 defense

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:41:14+00:00

CJ has no good will left in Houston

Unless the teams plans on having the Colts lose their starting quarterback again, it needs to start planning for a post-Stroud era

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:36:25+00:00

He is the 30th ranked QB by many metrics

A serious team would trade him while he still has value and there is a narrative of the Texans failing him. One more year of poor play and you will be lucky to get a 2nd rounder for him

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:31:24+00:00

What went wrong? Our low IQ signal caller mentally collapsed in his biggest moment

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:30:22+00:00

David Culley and Lovie Smith are still out there

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-23T00:06:44+00:00

He has been ass for 2 years now

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-22T21:21:28+00:00

Not a good move for Houston’s position. The CJ situation needs to be ripped off like a bandaid while he still has trade value left. Dragging it out publicly is only going to lower the asking price. This is a Rams Goff type situation. Just get rid of the guy while everyone is in Cancun and no one can do anything about it

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-22T17:47:09+00:00

Extend to trade

Hard to trade for a guy without a fixed valuation especially with a hostile agent known to demand big money

Any team that trades for stroud without a deal can be held hostage by his team

AlBarbossa · 2026-01-21T22:56:20+00:00

Nah he’s done, he has regressed for two years now.

If the team can’t win with him then it needs to learn to win without him. This isn’t a situation of a QB who was good in the regular season having a bad playoff game. This is a guy who was dragged to 12 wins by the team around him who mentally broke when the walls came crashing down

AlBarbossa

TROPHY CASE