War with Russia

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stowie

Active Member
Your comment suggests you have been brainwashed regarding the Taiwan - China relationship.
Thankfully/hopefully, signs are the Taiwanese are not as stupid, and have learnt from the Ukrainians. They gave Tsai's "confront China" Party an unexpected drubbing since in local elections.

They gave the DPP a surprise loss last year. The presidential elections next year looks very close.

But assuming that KMT will automatically focus attention on China at the expense of the US is misguided. KMT looks like it is adjusting its position to align with Taiwan mainstream opinion for the 2024 election. Polling gives all pro-unification options (now or later) sitting around 7% . That stance is not a vote winner.

China's actions in Hong-Kong has killed any "1 country, 2 system" approach with Taiwan's voters. I think both KMT and DPP will look towards maintaining the existing ambiguous status-quo rather than radical changes in approach, although the nuance of the rhetoric may soften towards China with the KMT.

I hear highly pessimistic expectations of a China invasion in the next few years of Taiwan within the industry I work in, but I feel that China executive isn't Putin - it is far, far cleverer than that and so am optimistic. It cannot be overstated the impact of a China invasion - Taiwan is central to almost all industries. It produces 55% of all semiconductors and the vast majority of high performance chips. The world economic effects of a China invasion and TSMC shutdown is huge. It isn't just the national interest of the US at stake here, it is the national interest of every country that operates a military and integrated national infrastructure. Which is pretty much all of them.
 
OP
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Milzy

Milzy

Well-Known Member
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64992727

ICC issues arrest warrant against Putin for War Crimes.
That’s a bold move.

The ‘Tin Foil hat’ brigade are saying he will be arrested in the next couple of weeks but also Trump could be also. More poppycock, cool if it came true I suppose.
 
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Beebo

Veteran
The ‘Tin Foil hat’ brigade are saying he will be arrested in the next couple of weeks but also Trump could be also. More poppycock, cool if it came true I suppose.

Putin can’t be arrested as the ICC has no jurisdiction in Russia, and he’s unlikely to visit any country that does.

Trump ‘could’ be arrested as he’s a least living in a country with a functioning legal system.
 

stowie

Active Member
Putin can’t be arrested as the ICC has no jurisdiction in Russia, and he’s unlikely to visit any country that does.

Trump ‘could’ be arrested as he’s a least living in a country with a functioning legal system.

US pulled out of the ICC so Trump can continue eating burgers and playing golf in Florida as long as he wants.
 

stowie

Active Member
If Trump is arrested is not by or on behalf off the ICC but by the Us goverment. think for the capital riots but it could also be his taxes

DOH! I understand what the original post was saying now...

I thought Trump getting an arrest warrant from the ICC would be really hypothetical!
 
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The history and sovereignty of Taiwan is varied and interesting and there is absolutely no doubt that its current status is disputed by PRC and Taiwan, and its constitution, and the PRC's has changed over the years. The current constitution of a state is no guarantee that it will remain so in perpetuity. There have been many examples of countries changing their constitution to independence as circumstances change...including the countries of the former USSR. I am sure that the legal status and sovereignty of Taiwan (or ROC) is disputed by people with a greater knowledge of international constitution law than you

Dunno why you bother disputing what is in ROC's constitution. Tsai's party has been trying to change the reunification reference for years, but never had enough support.

like every barracks room lawyer you are entitled to your opinion, based as it is on your own prejudices wrt to the PRC and the US.

As a student of politics, I positively welcome cogent challenges to my prejudices.

To make it easy for everybody to tell me where I have gone wrong re US, here is an assessment of US foreign policy that is 99% consistent with my prejudices.

Regarding the PRC,

the PRC does not really understand democracy.

Wow!

The PRC's understanding of democracy is the deepest in the world by a country mile, and they have continent-size results to prove it too (see bottom of post).

Democratic India, which had similar GDP (and population) 30 odd years earlier, is now 5 times poorer. Do you think it is luck?

Do you think the PRC didn't notice how Yeltsin/Gorbachev's democratisation worked out? Or how the Asian Tigers, including Taiwan, did not grow as liberal democracies? And Singapore, the one that outperformed them all and admired (by Boris anyway, apparently...), still isn't?

Coming back to today, how has democracy worked out for Ukraine?

What about UK? Or USA? Or Israel - supposedly the sole democracy in the Middle East? Have the democracies so endowed with riches from colonisation, genocides, and wars delivered for their citizens, never mind the world?

Yet, somehow you think the PRC don't understand democracy?

For some food for thought, I suggest we go back to the basics with Lincoln, who famously said democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Right?

The key question, which can't be raised in polite Western circles, is how come that became enshrined as one person one vote and anybody can be elected?

It is a pertinent question, because that meant some clown writing a column in the Telegraph, or another clown playing president on a TV show, or an orange "stable genius" succeeded by an 80 year old with cognitive challenges, etc., all got entrusted to deliver "for the people".

If a system patently can't be relied on to deliver the most complex and critical decisions on earth "for the people", what is the point, and consequence, of enshrining it, and then going through the motion every few years?

Let's try a thought experiment - if you had a magic wand, would you in good conscience make the PRC, with 1400000000 souls, adopt the democratic system you live in and/or you think you know? Will it deliver more "for the people"? How so?

Do you understand PRC's political system, when you say they don't understand democracy?

More fundamentally, do YOU* understand democracy?
Perceived Democratic Deficit 2022.jpg

Source. Also see (page 12 of) the Edelman trust barometer, or the Harvard Ash Centre survey.


* Hope you don't take my questions personally. Not your fault you are fed popular wall to wall bigotry daily - an all-party, national pastime nowadays - sadly another inevitable product of our democracy. "Survival" now requires blindness, wilful or otherwise - see what happened to Corbyn, and see how Jeffrey Sachs (who personally advised Yeltsin and Gorby on democratisation, bless) was stopped from talking about democracy in a recent democracy forum.
 

multitool

Shaman
They still are:

"Asked by Newsweek about whether the U.S. was deviating from its stated policy of speaking for Ukrainian interests in opposing a ceasefire, Kirby said that he "won't speak for President [Volodymyr] Zelensky or what he's willing to consider or not, he's been pretty vocal as of late that he doesn't support that."

"But I'm not going to speak for President Zelensky, I'm speaking for us," Kirby said."

Bigger picture is that China are seeking to shore up Russo-Sino relations, without appearing to become involved. Ceasefire offers Russia opportunity to regroup. Doesn't offer Ukraine anything.
 

Rusty Nails

Country Member
Dunno why you bother disputing what is in ROC's constitution. Tsai's party has been trying to change the reunification reference for years, but never had enough support.



As a student of politics, I positively welcome cogent challenges to my prejudices.

To make it easy for everybody to tell me where I have gone wrong re US, here is an assessment of US foreign policy that is 99% consistent with my prejudices.

Regarding the PRC,



Wow!

The PRC's understanding of democracy is the deepest in the world by a country mile, and they have continent-size results to prove it too (see bottom of post).

Democratic India, which had similar GDP (and population) 30 odd years earlier, is now 5 times poorer. Do you think it is luck?

Do you think the PRC didn't notice how Yeltsin/Gorbachev's democratisation worked out? Or how the Asian Tigers, including Taiwan, did not grow as liberal democracies? And Singapore, the one that outperformed them all and admired (by Boris anyway, apparently...), still isn't?

Coming back to today, how has democracy worked out for Ukraine?

What about UK? Or USA? Or Israel - supposedly the sole democracy in the Middle East? Have the democracies so endowed with riches from colonisation, genocides, and wars delivered for their citizens, never mind the world?

Yet, somehow you think the PRC don't understand democracy?

For some food for thought, I suggest we go back to the basics with Lincoln, who famously said democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. Right?

The key question, which can't be raised in polite Western circles, is how come that became enshrined as one person one vote and anybody can be elected?

It is a pertinent question, because that meant some clown writing a column in the Telegraph, or another clown playing president on a TV show, or an orange "stable genius" succeeded by an 80 year old with cognitive challenges, etc., all got entrusted to deliver "for the people".

If a system patently can't be relied on to deliver the most complex and critical decisions on earth "for the people", what is the point, and consequence, of enshrining it, and then going through the motion every few years?

Let's try a thought experiment - if you had a magic wand, would you in good conscience make the PRC, with 1400000000 souls, adopt the democratic system you live in and/or you think you know? Will it deliver more "for the people"? How so?

Do you understand PRC's political system, when you say they don't understand democracy?

More fundamentally, do YOU* understand democracy?
View attachment 3383
Source. Also see (page 12 of) the Edelman trust barometer, or the Harvard Ash Centre survey.


* Hope you don't take my questions personally. Not your fault you are fed popular wall to wall bigotry daily - an all-party, national pastime nowadays - sadly another inevitable product of our democracy. "Survival" now requires blindness, wilful or otherwise - see what happened to Corbyn, and see how Jeffrey Sachs (who personally advised Yeltsin and Gorby on democratisation, bless) was stopped from talking about democracy in a recent democracy forum.

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".
 
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