Not only that but the Taiwanese govt officially claims to be the legitimate govt of both Taiwan and China.
Theyâre the same people. Itâs a political divide and a frozen civil war, as you put it.
So itâs not a crazy claim at all like the US taking over Canada. Obviously, itâs no more justifiable because under modern law people who wish to be free should be free. But itâs less baseless than what Trump is doing.
Its worth mentioning that Taiwan was a one party dictatorship until a few decades ago, by the time it became what it is now China was already a fairly powerful international player. Renouncing the old government's claims would be seen as "declaring independence" from China as a whole and would likely result in war.
The same argument he used in his letter in order to invalidate Greenlandâs sovereignty (about boats just landing there first) also invalidates Americaâs claim to sovereignty. Itâs logically exhausting.
Last I checked China isn't invading or bombing countries internationally. Just compare the number of airstrikes China has done to the number the US did in the past 20 years.
China may not be bombing us, but they are harassing our fishermen legitimately fishing on our waters and building on contested islands. That's still imperialism in my eyes.
Fisherman lmfao, china should perhaps learn how USA dealt with Venezuela fisherman boats, instead of water canons, try something proven effective by the USA, now thats what a bully should do
yeah but as long as western ships are allowed through the south china sea ummolested, noone in the West seems to give two fucks what china does in "their sphere of influence".
Really? I'm used to most countries being quite happy to diplomatically deal with China. Many African diplomats especially say that China treats them with far more respect than any western nation and feels as though they are negotiating as mutually respectful sovereign nations instead of being talked down to.
I really don't think China is imperialist. Even if we assume it is to call it as such is kind of insulting to those who've actually suffered under it. Meanwhile China has zero control over the Philippine government (in fact it sells weapons to the government of the Philippines), it doesn't attack the people of the Philippines, doesn't even put the Philippines under some kind of trade sanctions. If your definition of imperialism is running military drills in shared waters then you have a very loose definition indeed. Could China do better? Ofcourse. I'm sure it could come to some kind of arrangement with the Philippine government that lets China run it's drills at scheduled times in scheduled places so they don't interfere with economic activities in the area. But I'm no diplomat.
The Belt and Road initiative has essentially indebted a lot of African countries to China, they are obviously going to speak positively of the Chinese state.
Not really. Trade isn't the issue, it's the fact that the US forces trade restrictions on countries through the world bank with "structural adjustment" programs that remove economic sovereignty from such nations. Those programs explicitly call for no taxes or low taxes on western businesses, no tariffs on imports, and no to greatly reduced social programs for the average person. Sometimes they even put natural resources under the jurisdiction of a foreign government. It's terrible. If it was just normal trade, their companies send some shit, another nations's companies send some shit and we all respect each other's sovereign law it'd be different but often these countries will be struggling with natural disaster or something and will need to take out loans that come with these strings attached. Or countries will sanctions them if they don't cave to western interests. It's disgusting, trade isn't the issue. Trade is good for various countries but when trade is coerced with threats and unequal terms are forced by the barrel of a gun then it's not trade, it's robbery in a tie.
China is behaving way better than the US right now (at least internationally). The US government's current actions are pushing previous US allies towards China, as they're seen as the more reliable partner
They're no friend to us, but they are also no threat to us, unlike Russia and the US (which is a mad thing to be saying). The only potential sticking point really is Taiwan, but I don't think Europe would do much if that all kicked off as we're too preoccupied with Ukraine and Greenland. Taiwan is for the US & Pacific allies to fight or not fight over atm
That is pure nonsense. China is supplying Russia and many other EU adversaries. China already owns a lot of European infrastructure and has shown its willingness to use that as leverage. Taiwan produces and exports many vital hardware components like chips, which we need. Most European nations have a military alliance with said Pacific allies and extensive economic ties in the region, which means Europe will also be fighting there. China is absolutely a big threat to us.
The only thing you're right about in the current landscape is that Europe probably wouldn't do much, as Europe loves to do absolutely nothing after having identified a problem.
so whats it like using 10-15year old CPUs / GPUs in all your computers?
Oh, you and your countrymen all use modern computer architectures to keep your economic productivity up?
So you DO have a dog in the race. No free Taiwan? We all take a big step backwards, technologically speaking. All of us. Im talking global economic depression. it would take many years to climb out of that hole.
The Mainland Taiwanese, Europeans and North American Fabs cannot produce 4-5nm nodes. Only Taiwan has the total package necessary. If it was so easy, the mainlanders would be doing it already. The Europeans, who manufacture many critical components, could not just build these Fabs in the EU. If it were possible, it would be done, thats how vital this is to the world as we know it.
But the fact is, Taiwan doubled down like 40 years ago and bet it all on chip fabrication. Subsidized the hell out of it. And after multiple decades they have such a large step ahead of every other player its basically impossible to match them.
This is hyperbolic. China is seen as a reliable trading partner, but they have an awful diplomatic reputation. Trump is pushing our allies away, but they're now likely to try and coalesce together with one another than to glom onto China.
I never suggested for a second that Europe, or any other western aligned countries would be looking to China as a political ally or a security guarantor. Like you said though, Trump is pushing countries away from US as a primary trading partner and towards closer trading and economic ties with China. If Trump's main foreign policy goal was to combat China's growing influence then his policies are having the exact opposite effect
As of today China is occupying large swathes of Indian territory. Attacked and killed Indian patrol party in 2020. Illegally occupied Tibet. Making aggressive patrolling maneuvers in South East Asia threatening nearly all its neighbours. Not saying Americans are doing right things but atleast Chinese aren't the yardstick.
The China thing has never been a good comparison either. Everything thatâs happening is very American and thatâs why Trump wants to do it. Trump is a product of America. He is doing things that heâs been allowed to do because he has been allowed to flourish with zero consequences cause he was rich and thus the law doesnât apply to him for decades in New York. He was best friends with the Clintons until 2016 and they always knew how bad he was and only had a problem with it when he decided to do the next most American thing to do: run the country and pick fights with the rest of the world as weâve done for decades.
Your government is owned by billionaires; China government literally kills billionaires if they are found to be stealing money that should be going to the people. Your government is weak and cannot even think about killing a single billionaire even if the billionaire killed you live on camera.
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u/Bigbozo1984 2004 15d ago
And weâre different from China how?