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Soundbite ? ...it's my opinion or should I say prejudice 🙄Yep. The selective misleading soundbite was so good it deserved a second airing. Double lol.
Whether you like it or not means next to nothing to me.
Soundbite ? ...it's my opinion or should I say prejudice 🙄Yep. The selective misleading soundbite was so good it deserved a second airing. Double lol.
I don't take your questions personally. My understanding of Democracy is very basic in that I believe it is important that the people have an active say in how they are governed and can change that government without need for revolution. Democracies vary, and unlike you I welcome the findings that show people in democracies are more dissatisfied with the standard of democracy shown by their governments than those in those countries that do not have the above freedoms. They actually know and have seen what democracy can offer and therefore know when it is not working as well as it should.
That China's leaders "Don't understand democracy" is actually short for "understand democracy well but know that it is dangerous because it gives people the choice to change governments and leaders and would not allow Xi to rule in perpetuity". I am not surprised that China is top of the chart of believing that democracy is important and they are satisfied with their democracy...because their people actually believe their rulers when they tell them they have it, and do not know anything different.
The whole report that your chart was taken from was very interesting and actually increases my belief in the benefits of Democracy over one-party authoritarian states because of the level of negativity towards the State that is allowed. As the report methodology says: "in some countries surveyed, the government plays an active role in shaping public opinion and/or has policies in place that restrict freedom of speech around certain topics. This can have a strong influence on the survey results".
As far as your last paragraph is concerned that is as it should be in a democracy, with the people of Taiwan deciding on the relationship with PRC, even though the PRC does not really understand democracy.
Not directly related to Russia / Ukraine war, but since Taiwan has been mentioned on the thread..
Inside Taiwan - standing up to China
A BBC documentary on the China / Taiwan history and current situation.
I can understand why some Taiwanese want Taiwan to be independent, just like I understand why some Scots, or indeed Londoners, quite like to be free of their state. But what has that got to do with the price of fish?
The morality (not that morality is determininant in geopolitics) is analogous to why I shouldn't be able to crown myself King of my domain despite owning a piece of London - other citizens have rights too, e.g. for their country not broken up peacemeal. Consequently, not only do Taiwan (never mind just their separatists) got no leg to stand on by might, they haven't got a leg to stand on by right either.
Which brings us to the bbc documentary - another depressing example of how we are brought low by standing shoulder to shoulder with the US, as a cynical, warmongering, ex-colonial bully in relative decline trying to cling on to hegemony. By supporting/encouraging Taiwan independence, we are following Russian footstep in Eastern Ukraine after Maidan, while repeating Victoria Nuland's modus operandi in Kyiv before, all at the expense of the Taiwanese (and potentially the world) when Ukrainians are dying every day. Worse, while the separatists in Eastern Ukraine have realpolitik on their side by having no huge, nuclear armed adversary with bottomless resolve, separatists in Taiwan do.
Once upon a time, Americans and Brits were not so transparently hypocritical and short-sighted diplomatically, and hence blessed with considerable soft power. How that has changed - all within 10 days, we have seen American occupiers killing fighters defending Syria, which is finalising a peace deal brokered by the Russian with the Saudi, which made peace with arch rival Iran brokered by the Chinese, all the while US seeing no irony in rubbishing the Chinese peace initiative for Ukraine. As if that is not enough for some immediate self reflection, in US Congress, the whole world was treated to the surreal spectacle of a single, young, Singaporean Chinese "warrior" coolly and calmly fighting a pack of xenophobic, hostile, jealous, bipartisan "wolves" for 5+ hours...
Turkey has approved Finland's NATO membership application meaning all NATO countries have now done so.
Turkey is still yet to approve Sweden membership.
Whatever Putin was seeking to achieve with his invasion of Ukraine, I doubt it was this.
Finland to become NATO member tomorrow
https://krassenstein.news/p/finland-is-set-to-join-nato-on-tuesday
Wouldn’t you just never go above the 2nd floor in any building.Look like Gerasimov is about to fall from grace
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...tish-ministry-of-defence-donbas-b1071582.html
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Wouldn’t you just never go above the 2nd floor in any building.
A last minute meeting with your manager on the 15th might require an urgent room change.
China farked it with the Hong-Kong crackdown. Taiwanese who were partial to the "one state, two systems" now know exactly what that means to the PRC and this policy option has become deeply unpopular.
Russia is creaking with sanctions. If you don't believe it, then consider that they are taking chips from washing machines to repurpose for military and are grounding civilian aircraft to cannabilise parts to keep others in the air. But Russia is big with a relatively small population and a bunch of raw natural resources with light integration into global markets. China is almost the opposite, it is one of the most globalised economies on earth. It would be very, very painful for the west to sanction China as they did to Russia, but it would collapse China's economy.
Did you watch the documentary? It had those in favour of unification as well as those calling for indpendence. And most who wanted the status quo.
There is a lot to criticise about the US and they have done terrible things in other countries. But I will never understand how that then gives a free pass to people like Putin who are provably committing war crimes in a foreign nation they invaded.