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nekandro

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nekandro OP ,

Taipei Times saying the quiet part out loud “Beijing’s new set of judicial guidelines targeting Taiwan independence advocates and dozens of Chinese planes entering Taiwan’s real estate come after a visit to Taipei last week by two US deputy assistant secretaries of state”

nekandro OP ,

People forget that the reason Taiwan’s shifted to its current stance has been that the DPP has risen to power on the backs of rampant KMT corruption, not that Taiwanese people are in support of DPP foreign policy. Even so, the past election demonstrated that the majority of Taiwanese really don’t want a DPP government… Unfortunately Lai is still head of state under the FPTP system, so here we are.

Both the KMT and TPP (which together received a majority of votes and would’ve won the election if not for the coalition negotiations failing to back a combined presidential ticket) support a more moderate stance with China.

In fact, today it’s the DPP that’s come under fire because of corruption. Recent bills that have passed through the Yuan have seen DPP members stealing bills before reading to avoid anti-corruption language from coming into effect and brawling other parties’ legislators because of opposition. It’s actually quite funny if you ever get the chance to watch proceedings.

nekandro OP ,

Russia is the counterbalance for China/US influence in Vietnam. Vietnam is brilliantly playing 3 of 4 sides in global politics (missing the EU, which can’t really negotiate on behalf of the union) for domestic gain.

nekandro OP ,

This strike is extremely confusing. It’s a space radar thats only other use case is as an early-warning radar for ICBMs (that is, in the event of nuclear war).

Why is Ukraine going after Russia’s nuclear triad? What the fuck is going on?

nekandro OP ,

The implication being that somebody wants to launch a nuclear strike on Russia.

Attacking a country’s nuclear triad is cause for a nuclear retaliatory strike under all non-NFU doctrines. If Russia can’t identify whether an incoming object is a nuclear strike, any no first use doctrine goes out the window.

This is pushing us straight towards nuclear war with our eyes closed.

nekandro OP ,

The current Long March series are already price-competitive-ish with SpaceX, but they’re missing manufacturing capacity to continue churning out rockets. This seems to be the solution?

nekandro OP ,

Honestly this is the problem with all road infrastructure. It’ll be interesting to see how countries like China manage it. China currently has the largest paved-road system in the world, and maintaining that will not come cheap.

nekandro OP ,

The Senkaku Islands, also known as the Diaoyu Islands, are claimed by both the PRC and ROC as an island chain under the Yilan County of Taiwan.

The historical context for this island claim is the most absurd: neither the PRC nor ROC were invited to the San Francisco Peace Treaty talks with Japan. A few months prior, the ROC’s Chiang Kai-Shek had signed the Potsdam Declaration with Allied leaders and explicitly declared which islands Japan could hold sovereignty over (the Senkakus were, notably, excluded). However, de facto sovereignty was overseen by the US until 1972, when the Okinawa Reversion shifted sovereignty to Japan.

If there is one territorial claim where the PRC and ROC are in the right with, it’s this one… Not the random claims the ROC has with Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, or Tajikistan (for which the PRC has negotiated and settled with), but for this attempt by Allied powers to ostracize a weak China and discredit the sacrifice of Chinese lives post-WW2.

nekandro OP ,

Taiwanese support for Israel exceeds Taiwanese support for Palestine by more than 2:1.

nekandro ,

The fact that Moscow Metro is up there despite Moscow being so fucking cold is wild

nekandro ,

You’re completely forgetting the most important part…

China has already shown that they’re willing to negotiate (e.g. the Gulf of Tonkin with Vietnam, which was favourable to the Vietnamese).

With regards to the Paracels, Vietnam holds claims solely as leverage in the Spratlys. Vietnam lacks any control over the Paracels and has not supported American FONOPS through the Paracels for that reason alone. Vietnam knows that their claim to the Spratlys is strong. Vietnam has been escalating their island-building in the Spratlys for that exact reason. From what I can tell, Vietnam is trying to secure partial or total jurisdiction over the Spratlys in exchange for yielding the Paracels. Unfortunately, until Vietnam/China obtain exclusive co-sovereignty in the region, such an agreement is impossible.

nekandro ,

Nukes are an inevitability following sanctions. North Korea was sanctioned to hell and back by major international players before they developed nukes… At that point, they really might as well go all the way. The same is true for Iran, and the same will be true for any upcoming player with nukes.

The weaponization of sanctions for political gain rather than to act as a counterbalance against actual world-ending threats will be the death of us.

nekandro OP ,

The collapse of the modern Italian state as we know it lmao

Taiwan to acquire more than 1,000 armed drones in new US arms sale (www.cnn.com)

The United States has approved the $360 million sale of more than 1,000 small armed drones to Taiwan, as the self-ruled island claimed by China aims to strengthen its asymmetrical warfare abilities with an eye on successful tactics used on the battlefield in Ukraine....

nekandro ,

The Altius 600 weighs 27 pounds and carries a maximum payload of 7 pounds. The Lancet weighs 12kg (~26 pounds) and carries a maximum payload of 3kg (~6.6 pounds).

What are you smoking?

nekandro ,

Your yummy democratic genocide vs. my disgusting authoritarian “cultural genocide”

nekandro ,

Have you ever tried starting up a car that’s been sitting for a year?

That should tell you all you need to know about the reliability of digger man

nekandro ,

For fucks sake China sells their cars for export at a 40% markup compared to the domestic market. At-cost my ass

nekandro ,

You’re not entirely correct: China had heavily subsidized their EV industry.

The purchase incentive is gone. Many tax incentives are gone. Tax benefits for setting up factories are gone (closed ICE factories are being decommissioned rather than sold).

If you had said that in 2019, you’d be entirely correct. Today? Things are different.

nekandro ,

Are we ignoring how China’s top EU exports are made up by MG (a British brand) and Volvo (a Swedish brand)? How Mercedez-Benz partnered with BYD to release the hybrid GLC? How Stellantis partnered with Leapmotor?

Chinese carmakers are already sharing technology with Europe. All this tariff serves to do is push them to sell hybrids, which are excluded from the tariff.

nekandro ,

sigh

You know what the biggest cities in Xinjiang are? Urumqi, Korla, Aksu, Karamay. Those are some Chinese sounding names /s

Note that some towns have been switched to a Mandarin standard. This is especially true when Han populations dominate a particular city (e.g., Shihezi, set up by a Chinese general in 1951), or when a city relies on tourism from other provinces (e.g., Beitun, a ski towm). But… That’s not what the article is discussing, really. The article is much more interested in Romanization of these names.

Officially, the Uyghur name shares equal right as the Chinese one, however, sometimes the Uyghur Romanization is a pain in the ass to pronounce while the Chinese one is far easier (Ürümqi vs. Wulumuqi). This is as true in Xizang as it is in Xinjiang (the name བོད་ is still used to refer to Xizang by official Chinese standards, but that doesn’t phonetically map to Tibet). Of course, people are forgetting that English is neither the first nor second most common language in Xinjiang… In fact, given the number of ethnic minorities I doubt it’s even on the list. The English name is selected for convenience rather than anything else because nobody except Western tourists will ever use it.

There’s an interesting debate happening today in Canada as to whether this Romanization makes sense: while First Nations names like Squamish and Tsawwassen have been Romanized and are used colloquially, First Nations groups oppose Romanization because of its association with colonialism and instead would prefer names like “šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ”. The question is, which do you keep as the English public-facing name?

Of course, this is coming from the same The Guardian that reported that “the last major mosque in China lost its domes and minarets” when the Afaq Khoja and Id Kah exist and are widely known as holy sites in Uyghur Islam. The Guardian’s reporting on China has consistently been sloppy because they don’t have a correspondent in Xinjiang and their editorial teams don’t speak Chinese or Uyghur.

nekandro ,

Nobody commenting on this has ever visited Xinjiang. Nobody writing these articles has ever visited Xinjiang. Can you blame people for listening to the media they have access to?

There’s a funny thing about the notion of media literacy in China vs. the US: in China, media literacy is mostly “what is the media not telling me?” while in the US, media literacy is mostly “which media source is telling me the right thing?”

nekandro ,

IIRC you’re not allowed to set up territorial military outposts in EEZ, so OP is correct that the Philippines government is violating international law.

nekandro ,

You’re not allowed to set up a territorial military outpost in EEZ lol

nekandro OP ,

There’s too many boring US/China news stories. Just because an article talks about the US or China (superpowers) does not make it interesting on its own.

nekandro ,

BBC is on a roll today

nekandro ,

lmao you don’t even want to know about Tesla battery fires I take it?

nekandro ,

It’s an EV problem, not a China problem… Unfortunately

nekandro ,

And the Cybertruck was…

nekandro ,

and you’re complaining about the batteries lmfao

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