D
Deleted member 49
Guest
Soundbite ? ...it's my opinion or should I say prejudice 🙄
Whether you like it or not means next to nothing to me.
War with Russia
- Thread starter Milzy
- Start date
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Whether you like it or not means next to nothing to me.
Rusty Nails
Country Member
stowie
Active Member
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.
Inside Taiwan - standing up to China
A BBC documentary on the China / Taiwan history and current situation.
RecordAceFromNew
Member
Your reading of the chart is bonkers - plenty of countries, liberal democracy or otherwise, have unsatisfactory scores. Yet you conclude bad scores show liberal democracy works well?
So you think the Chinese don't know what is going on in their country and in the world while you do? Not only can they experience what their government has delivered, they even know we never stop telling the world: a) what government they should have instead and b) that they are living in a dystopian state as reflected by your characterisation. Meanwhile, our governments have delivered diddly-squat. Are you aware that pre-Covid hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese work in China, that they were each other's major tourist destinations, while 150 millions Chinese travelled abroad each year? Come to think of it, perhaps you might wish to make the dystopian state your next holiday destination, if you could - you might get your brain unwashed as a free bonus!
Incidentally, Ipsos has just rated your dystopian state the happiest country on earth. Some smart cookie quipped the difference between a liberal democracy and China, is that in one the ruling party keeps changing while policies stay the same, in the other the ruling party remains the same but policies reform constantly - there is no prize guessing which is which, but have you contemplated why they behave the way they do?
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...
The Bourbons, said to have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, come to mind.
stowie
Active Member
The word "some" is doing some pretty heavy lifting here. In polling, less than 5% want to retain the status quo with eventual movement to unification whilst less than 2% want unification immediately. The majority is for retention of the status quo with either no eventual movement or movement towards independence.
Taiwan is de-facto independent now, and it appears the Taiwanese want to keep it that way, with diplomatic ambiguity being considered the best way forward.
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.
Taiwan is not Ukraine. Their military is highly advanced, their population is mobilised already and their geography is horrible for invading forces. A Taiwan invasion - even for the PRC army - would be fraught with risks. And that isn't considering external actions from other nations which would almost certainly be economically more damaging than Russian sanctions even if sanctions were at the same level.
China has huge risk with action on Taiwan. At the risk of repeating myself, Semiconductors are the new oil and Taiwan is the epicentre of semiconductor production. Everything in nearly every country is reliant upon Taiwan. From F35 fighters to fridges, TSMC will have manufactured at least some chips for it. At the very best scenario China would take over Taiwan without a shot fired and fabs and infrastructure intact. And then they will have a bunch of fabs they cannot operate using raw materials that won't be available to them. The likeliest scenerio is fabs are put out of action, the infrastructure is down and the world's chip supplies grind to a halt . And this would hurt China as badly (or worse) than anywhere else. They have their own fabs but they are nowhere near the cutting edge of Samsung, TSMC or Intel plus they need raw materials such as wafers. And those wafers come from countries that wouldn't exactly be amenable to the invasion - the wafer export would stop and so would China fabs such as SMIC.
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 independence. And most who wanted the status quo.
I think seeing Russia as peace-maker in Syria is certainly quite a take on their actions in the country. They did flatten cities in an effort to keep Assad in power. And it worked. Russia is hosting the meeting of the foreign powers most involved in the Syrian conflict.
On the other hand, the China brokerage of Iran and Saudi diplomatic relations is a major breakthrough for regional stability. Unlike the Ukraine proposal which Ukraine could not accept and Russia wouldn't carry through anyway. China likes the idea of a weak and very junior partner in Russia isolated from the West. It allows China access to Russia's gas, oil, water and natural reserves and strengthens China's hand on their borders which China still contest and I expect will negotiate vigorously if their hand is strengthened.
Seeing everything as the dead hand of the US seems to miss enormous regional power plays. It seems a strange way to view the world. 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.
OP
OP
Milzy
Well-Known Member
This is absolutely massive!!! I’m a bit surprised but kind of glad.
multitool
Guest
Look like Gerasimov is about to fall from grace
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...tish-ministry-of-defence-donbas-b1071582.html
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...tish-ministry-of-defence-donbas-b1071582.html
multitool
Guest
Finland to become NATO member tomorrow
https://krassenstein.news/p/finland-is-set-to-join-nato-on-tuesday
https://krassenstein.news/p/finland-is-set-to-join-nato-on-tuesday
D
Deleted member 121
Guest
It's all NATO's fault....
Beebo
Veteran
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.
multitool
Guest
I did once stay in this Moscow Hotel in the mid 80s. Opting out of the top floor wouldn't help, one of the lifts blew up in the nineties. If they want you gone, you're gone.
glasgowcyclist
Ăśber Member
He was in the news yesterday, visiting Poland for an agreement on the supply of more aircraft🤷‍♂️
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65194094
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65194094
RecordAceFromNew
Member
I already explained why what Taiwan (or HK) separatists want is irrelevant – do give reasons if you disagree. Regarding the “crackdown”, any objective assessment would have concluded the Chinese and (incompetent) HK leaders acted with exceptional restraint – nobody was killed while one died every 3 days on average for 30 years during the Troubles, never mind police violence in US. Whether the Taiwanese dislike the outcome or not, continued chaos would have been the only alternative. Meanwhile:
Supporting rioters is actually a breach of the Westphalian system enshrined in UN Charter – namely non-interference in domestic affairs of other states - same set of rules that make McCain / Nuland’s actions in Kiev AND Putin’s invasion illegal (and scot-free).
Semiconductors are the least of the world’s worry if there is a hot war. In a cold war, countries not sanctioning Russia sure aren’t going to sanction China - their biggest trade partner:
Those figures also prove you have it backwards – we are far more dependent on China than the other way round. We also have the US to thank for turning Russia, Iran, Saudi and numerous countries outside the West East. Even Europe, Scholz brought 12 top CEOs to Beijing, Macron brought 50 today. Do you think they or China want war of any kind?
It is unfortunate that war has become a Five Eyes obsession. Status quo is clearly inconvenient and unacceptable to the US, hence the never-ending shite-stirring. Problem is world manufacturing, transport infrastructures and logistics all emanate from one country with little prospect of meaningful change for decades, if ever. Meanwhile the perfect storm of low investment, Covid, money printing, and own goals with the war have already stoked our inflation and interest rates to levels not seen for decades. What could possibly go wrong with decoupling?
I believe the US led initiative to contain China by weaponising high end semiconductors is too little too late. What the initiative will do, is to incense and turbocharge a society delivering 8 times more STEM graduates, and the world’s highest PISA rating. With the current state of play in technology, and a strategy not exactly finding favour with most countries, do you think our leaders have thought through which direction containment could end up applying in practice?
I watched it, unfortunately. It is perfectly encapsulated by its concluding remark, i.e.: “The last 7 years has turned most Taiwanese against re-unification with the Mainland, China is running out of options to solve its Taiwan problem peacefully.”
Does it not insult your intelligence, when even a moron could tell time is on China’s side? Also in terms of incentive, unlike Xi the US wouldn't care less if Chinese ending up killing Chinese. The Palestinians have been in dire need of statehood and rescue from genocide for decades - why don't US/UK start there? You might want to watch this and then re-watch the documentary if you could stomach it – it might just open your eyes to how our propaganda against China works.
What free pass? Do you mean the Russian gas pumping through Ukraine right now? Or are you talking about the energy merry go round via Asia?
US' and friends’ problem, is their highly selective outrage. It is doubly embarrassing when (like you?) they get on a high horse telling others off for not being as outraged as them, given US’ long list of war and other crimes, including in Cuba today, ironically.
Except for those who think history only began on 24/2/22, it is obvious Ukraine must bear responsibility for being a principal author of their tragedy. Anybody who disagrees should try this thought experiment - if your child must live in a lawless neighbourhood, would you want them to join one of the warring gangs?
That brings us to today’s news*: “US opposes offering Ukraine a road map to Nato membership”. “Nato in 2008 agreed that Ukraine would at some point become a member, but has not advanced that language since then. At that time, it was the US who called for Nato to grant Ukraine a concrete accession timetable”. So, psych them up for a fight, and now no path to membership without fighting to the last Ukrainian if necessary. You couldn’t make it up! The Taiwanese must be thrilled!
* if the paywall stops you just google "US opposes offering Ukraine a road map to Nato membership" from an incognito/private window of your browser and hit the ft link.
