gnuhaut @ gnuhaut @lemmy.ml

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2 yr. ago

Taiwan was returned to the Republic of China (ROC), ruled by the nationalist KMT, after the defeat of Imperial Japan, which had occupied it. The KMT forces lost the civil war on the mainland against the communists and fled to Taiwan, claiming to be the true government of China. The ROC was a military dictatorship until the late 80s and responsible for the White Terror. At first, the communist People's Liberation Army (PLA) couldn't follow and invade Taiwan because they lacked a navy, and soon after, the ROC got US protection (Taiwan was in important US military base during the Korean war).

In the 70s, Nixon recognized the People's Republic of China (PRC) in Beijing as the legitimate government of China, and un-recognized Taipei. He also signed an agreement with the PRC stating that there is one China, and that Taiwan is part of China. White House spokespeople reaffirm this regularly when asked. They never actually properly committed to this though: In practice the US treats Taiwan almost like it is independent, but they avoid calling it that officially. So the US is arguably in breach of its agreement with China on this point, and always was (though I think this was understood by all sides at the time of signing).

In this agreement, the US also promised to work towards reunification and to demilitarize Taiwan. They did in fact remove US troops from Taiwan and scaled down weapons deliveries. Lately though, they are increasingly breaking these promises with more weapons deliveries, more US military personnel on Taiwan, and open support for pro-independence positions and politicians.

The PRC for its part promised to work towards peaceful reunification and not use military force. So far they haven't, so this is currently a one-sided breach of the agreement by the US. Why is the US breaking an agreement that so far has prevented a military conflict?

Both Beijing, as well as the majority of people on Taiwan, are in favor of continuing the status quo for a while longer. But Beijing has made it clear that they will not accept Taiwan declaring independence, and they certainly do not want a hostile military presence so close to the Chinese mainland and important port cities. The PRC has threatened to blockade/invade Taiwan if independence is declared or if there is a military buildup.

No it doesn't. One is about kicking out colonial rule, and the other is about kicking out migrants.

help the US and it’s allies stop Russia from invading other countries as they have been doing for decades

Wait, you think the country that has by far done the most invasions should be supported to stop checks notes an invasion? This is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. And apparently by any means necessary too.

I wonder what would have happened if the US's whole Mediterranean fleet were destroyed thanks to Russian help during one of their "humanitarian interventions". I wonder if you were also moralizing about the need to start WW3 in those situations?

That's because you identify with the US empire, which is not, and never was, on your team. And neither was Musk.

Musk isn't even against the US empire, he just didn't want to escalate. The White House regularly does (not) do a thing because they don't want to escalate. They're all traitors to the US too, are they?

Treason is not wanting total war, got it.

"Patriotic socialist", someone who claims to be a champion of the working class, but is actually more of nationalist. They only care about the working class of a certain nationality or racial group, and are generally bigoted in their view towards marginalized groups. Real socialists are internationalist. You wanting to get rid of Musk, because he's not sufficiently gung-ho about a war fought between capitalists on the back of workers, implies you consider the national interest more important than the lives of workers. This is anti-worker class collaborator shit, which is what patsocs are really.

You're mad at Musk for this???

Musk has done so many terrible things. Treats his workers like shit, destroys the environment, platforms racists (he's a racist pos himself), false advertising, siphons government subsidies, scams investors (including pension funds, I don't particularly care about scamming venture capitalist and the like), lobbies against public transport and god knows what I forgot right now.

But oh no! He only supports the war effort up to a point, and he doesn't want to have a cold war with China. For once he's kinda reasonable, and for that the libs are calling him a traitor.

You're just thinking of the worker aristocracy in the West, not the global working class, clearly. China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. And it's neat how you blame China for something done by your own ruling class. Furthermore, this trade war (not to mention a war war) will be terrible for workers everywhere. Do you think the billionaires are going to bail you out? No, they're going to squeeze workers even more to finance this conflict, and they'll tell you suffering is your patriotic duty.

And imagine thinking China is the genocidal one out of those two. The US has had a hand in so many genocides and has directly and indirectly killed millions in the last decades. If you compare this to what China has done recently they look like angels.

Patsoc detected.

You: Want to abolish billionaires because they do not support the war enough.

Me: Want to abolish billionaires because they exploit and oppress the working class.

We are not the same.

Elon Musk is a US interest. The US is a bunch of business interests in a trench coat, and they don't always agree on everything. Some want to do business with China, some want the Chinese competition destroyed, and some want to create tension so they can sell more weapons.

The idea that Musk is "counter" to US interests is wrong, he just represents a faction of the ruling class that's not on board with the (trade) war on China. Since it's not in the interest of the working class to have a US-China (trade) war, neither in the US nor anywhere really, he is inadvertently aligned with the interests of the majority of humanity on this one.

You say that, but conscription always has exceptions, which usually include having an important job or going to university, which would presumably skew the result towards more poor people in the army. There's also corruption of course.

Haha, funny colonies, wanting reparations! Where are MY reparations, amiright? Seriously, don't you think the shit that the British empire has stolen, and which you actually still benefit from, already more than make up for it?

These situations aren't the fucking same:

The current wealth of the British royal family is obviously derived in no small part to slave trading and colonial crimes. The current poverty in the Caribbean can easily be tied to this same history. You can also prove that the ancestors of many people living there were definitely trafficked.

How is this in any way comparable to the Roman occupation? Do you still feel the negative effects of the Roman occupation? Can you find some wealthy family or institution that actually made their money during the Roman occupation? How many of current British citizens can even make somewhat plausible claim that their ancestors suffered under the Roman occupation? And even if they can, this affects them how?

Just tried this again. Kitty takes like maybe half a second to start on my machine (maybe yours is faster?). Not sure how to measure this. xterm starts almost instantly. I can type "Super+Enter ls" and it'll work. Doesn't work with kitty, the keystrokes just disappear. Is this actually important? Probably not, but it feels annoying. Like slow internet.

I might have imagined the typing latency, since it feels the same as xterm now. Maybe I'm remembering wrong. I was on the old Debian when I last tried this though, so something could have changed.

you’re simply asserting the sources are wrong and that the generals mean exactly the opposite of what they’re saying.

I implore you to read this again, seriously. Nobody can be this bad at reading comprehension. Do you actually think he's referring to Russia when he says "I think all kinds of ideologists and instigators of this war will not stop here.". He does not think Russia instigated the war! Are you just utterly incapable of assuming someone else's perspective? Because that would explain a lot.

This does not describe an extermination camp at all. I guess you're referring to this (I have to guess since you failed to point out exactly what you're referring to):

Russian soldiers used physical force against civilians, sometimes resulting in death, according to Ukraine 5 AM Coalition

This isn't even part of that eyewitness account. This is just an NGO alleging this, without pointing to the exact source document. An NGO that doesn't disclose its funding on its website as far as I can see. This isn't even describing a death camp, which is what you were confidently stating is a thing. What am I supposed to do with this?

The quote says literally exactly what the article is saying

No it doesn't. He alleges that instigators of the war (meaning not Russia, since he doesn't believe Russia instigated the war), will not stop in Ukraine. He's not referring to Russia, clearly. Given how he answers the "stepping stone" question like that, he obviously thinks that Ukraine is a stepping stone for those western instigators to attack Russia.

I'll paraphrase: Is Ukraine a stepping stone? – Yes, the western warmongers won't stop at Ukraine.

This is obviously what he means.

This is two examples of you misrepresenting sources in one comment. How am I supposed to take you seriously?

adults are being moved to death camps

Can you point out exactly where it says that? This is the first time I'm hearing of death camps.

Literally today a Russian general said Ukraine is simply the first stop to an invasion of Europe.

I just debunked this in another thread, let me quote myself:

The article links to this tweet here as a source.

I don't speak Russian, but I'm transcribing the English subtitles:

Interviewer: How long will the war last?

Mordvichev: I think there is plenty of time to spend. It is pointless to talk about a specified period. If we are talking about Eastern Europe, which we will have to... of course, then it will be longer.

Interviewer: Ukraine is only a stepping stone?

Mordichev: Yes, absolutely. It is only the beginning. I think all kinds of ideologists and instigators of this war will not stop here.

Since he's a Russian general, I assume that by "instigators and ideologists of this war" he means someone higher up in the US or NATO. Certainly he's not referring to Putin or the Kremlin. And he's saying they will not stop here.

This btw, is totally consistent with what I said before. Russia thinks they are being provoked and that the next step after NATO encirclement is them getting attacked.

I'm not saying they're not committing war crimes. I'm saying the goal of the war is not extermination, since an extermination war would look very different. The war crimes are very similar to what the US did in their recent wars, like Iraq. So unless you think those were extermination campaigns, then that's not good evidence. You'd have to compare it to e.g. the Nazi's eastern campaign, which, again, looked very different. Where are the extermination camps? Where are the ghettos? Where are the death squads? Did the Nazis try to make every Pole get a regular German passport? The rhetoric of liberating their quasi-Russian brothers and sisters from Banderite ideology and Western vassaldom is also very different from the Nazi "Untermenschen" crap.

Whether or not "anxiety" justifies the war isn't important. We were talking about why they invaded, and they did this in the sincere belief that this was necessary to protect against a hostile military encirclement. This is not an unreasonable belief. The US would react similarly to such an encirclement, even if the other side repeatedly insists they don't have hostile intent. Even if there is actually no hostile intent (I doubt it), that's still not great, since plan and intent are subject to change. Who's going to guarantee that some future administration doesn't want to leverage the strategic advantage gained by parking an army and/or nukes near Moscow?

So this is what's called a provocation, and it suggests that the Russians aren't "mad" or irrational. They're behaving as expected by the theory of realpolitik. This would mean that this war could be deescalated by backing off and agreeing to a neutral Ukraine.

Edit: Russia invading Ukraine has therefore two main goals:

• Prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member. So long as Ukraine is in a war (or just a territorial dispute) with Russia, most NATO members will not want to admit Ukraine into NATO, since that could drag them into war with a nuclear power.
• Drive back the anti-Russian NATO-equipped Ukrainian army (quite a large force actually) from their core territories. This would give Russia a buffer to better absorb an attack from the territory of Ukraine (which is btw the direction both Hitler and Napoleon used to attack Russia). This also suggest that Russia is probably going to try to expand the buffer zone unless Ukraine gets demilitarized and neutralized (as in become neutral), if they can.

The goal is not to murder Ukrainians. And the primary goal is not to take territory, that just follows from the primary goal of creating a security buffer.

Yes, the Russian troll farm pays me to post for the dozen weirdos who actually read this on here. Money well spent!

Makes perfect sense.

Germany and Italy literally did not get rid fascism willingly, they were defeated and this was imposed on them. And being from Germany, I assure you denazification was incredibly half-assed.

Look at it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0

They're doing the salute and everything. That salute was introduced by the fascist OUN.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SlCLSBr9sW0

See what they are doing while chanting "Slava Ukraini"? Notice the salutes? That's the context of this becoming popular in Ukraine (again).