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puelocesar 2 days ago [-]
That was a surprisingly good read. Brief enough that I can finish while in-between tickets, but long and deep enough that it can beautifully explain the whole crisis without oversimplifying it, and at the same time carefully presenting the two conflicting narratives.
edit: although I probably wouldn't trust the source when reading about Middle East conflicts...
nixon_why69 2 days ago [-]
> This is why Taiwan cannot be understood only as a sovereignty dispute. It is a test of whether the Indo-Pacific remains a plural maritime system, or whether it becomes a China-centered security sphere.
It was never a plural maritime system. The question is whether the oceans in question are US-dominated or Chinese-dominated.
actionfromafar 2 days ago [-]
I think the unsaid part is that the US by and large upheld navigable seas for everyone up until recently but we can't expect this from China. (And regrettably from recent events, maybe not from the US either.)
yogthos 2 days ago [-]
Why cant' we expect this from China which is the main trading partner for the vast majority of the world and relies on navigable seas exactly?
csomar 2 days ago [-]
They didn’t upheld navigable seas for everyone. Sanctions are a thing. They upheld the seas for anyone that wanted to join and play by its rules.
nixon_why69 2 days ago [-]
Slightly separate issues. We didn't interdict Iranian tankers at sea until very recently, despite the sanctions. But we are doing it now, of course.
That said, China has a long record of doing business with anyone and avoiding ideological conflict on all issues except for specifically Taiwan. They did business with Pinochet's Argentina in the 80s, while Argentina was throwing socialists out of helicopters and China was still fully communist. Unless you're a pure American forpol shill, there's no reason to suspect they'd restrict free passage in their area.
actionfromafar 2 days ago [-]
I expect China to do sanctions on anyone doing business with Taiwan.
nixon_why69 2 days ago [-]
They've had 75 years to prove you right, and so far they haven't.
big_youth 2 days ago [-]
They didn't really become a global power until recently. Even during my youth in the 2000's it was 'China is rising', 75 years ago they were extremely poor, mostly agrarian and recovering from decades of war and revolution. 2026 China is a completely different beast.
zbentley 1 days ago [-]
> China has a long record of doing business with anyone and avoiding ideological conflict on all issues except for specifically Taiwan
...and Tibet, North Korea, Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Aksai Chin/Arunachal Pradesh, and others.
2 days ago [-]
tim333 2 days ago [-]
There are quite a lot of other countries that use that bit of ocean. India, Vietnam, Japan, Australia etc. By not plural you mean China/US are more aggressive?
nixon_why69 20 hours ago [-]
I mean the seas around china are dominated by the US Navy, we effectively have a ring of allied bases around them. Use of those seas is because the US allows it.
I don't know why the authors said "indo-pacific" in a scare piece about China, I think the Indian Ocean would be a lot less relevant to the topic.
MSFT_Edging 2 days ago [-]
Lets play "Spot the thinktank cretins"!
jstribune.com about page:
> The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune is a journal representing Israeli and American views about international affairs.
Hm interesting. Lets see who runs it.
Editorial Board
-Ahmed Charai, Chair -- Owner of the site, on multiple thinktank boards such as the atlantic council
-Jacob Heilbrunn, Co-Chair -- Another fellow of the atlantic council
-Dr. Daniel Samet -- Daniel J. Samet is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
-Melinda Haring -- a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center
-Dr. Eran Lerman -- former IDF colonel and a lecturer at Shalem College
Board of Directors
-Gen. James Jones -- 21st national security advisor under Obama.
-Ahmed Charai -- owner of the site again
-Admiral James Foggo III -- former US navy Admiral. Nice retirement spot, James
Board of Advisors
-Hon. Dov Zakheim, Chairman -- Various positions under Reagan
-Gen. Yaakov Amidror -- former major general and National Security Advisor of Israel
-- got tired of the bit around here --
-Ambassador Anne W. Patterson
-Ambassador Eric Edelman
-Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan
-Ambassador Atul Keshap
-Gen. Ruth Yaron
-Dan Meridor
Anyway, the goal here was to point out articles like this don't come from journalistic backgrounds, but thinktank policy makers. The intention of pieces like this is to launder official government opinion as a semi-legitimate news source. Think "Radio Free Asia".
__patchbit__ 2 days ago [-]
Paul Craig Roberts points to Israel and the powerful American lobby are writing new laws to be passed forbidding words and ideas, which is against the spirit and the letter of established laws and gets no or not enough journalistic attention.
notavalleyman 2 days ago [-]
Sometimes an essay is just an essay, and not an elaborate conspiracy by multiple governments to trick you into thinking about geography
MSFT_Edging 2 days ago [-]
This one was just an essay, but remember when you couldn't go a day without an article about Uyghur's in Xiajiang?
I'd play this game with those articles, where every article would cite a little essay like this on a similar thinktank site or the actual Zenz study. No new journalism, just rehashing reports like this.
This isn't a conspiracy, it's an industry made up of ex-insiders who maintain relationships and pedal the talking points.
notavalleyman 2 days ago [-]
Ok so....you previously felt like you were seeing a lot of articles about Uighurs ....and that's proof of a wider conspiracy?
And....you see that essays often include citations. And that's proof of a dark network of the illuminated?
Funny, I watched it just last Friday (randomly, as I don't follow that channel). But while its author makes a compelling point, I'm not sure sure how much of the basing of the semi-conductor industry in Taiwan was a conscious decision vs a post-facto rationalization.
thenthenthen 2 days ago [-]
This has not much to do with semi conductors (i think). China and USA have strong diplomatic relations, that seemingly have been turned upside down a couple of time, which way the coin landed this time? Not sure, but with Trumps recent visit and statements, he seem to recite the 1980’s playbook. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/06/25/i...
Geography shapes strategy more than headlines do.
Taiwan isn’t just a political issue — it’s shipping lanes, semiconductor supply chains, military positioning, and global economics all concentrated in one place.
That’s why the situation stays so sensitive even decades later.
regularization 2 days ago [-]
> Taiwan is not simply an island claimed by Beijing
Yes, China claims Taiwan and China are the same country. Not mentioned is that US policy also says that Taiwan and China are the same country. In fact Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country. You would think reading this that Taiwan had declared independence from China as a separate country.
Also on the topic of "simply an island" - Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan, they are on Kinmen island in the harbor of Xiamen on the mainland PRC. This would be like Manhattan receiving imperial proclamations about its "sovereignty" from China.
The fact is Taiwan was Chinese long before the United States even existed, just like the Russian Navy has been in Crimea since before the US existed. The US funded and armed separatist forces - but in 1900 the US was raising its flag in Beijing's imperial city. The historical development is these imperial intrusions have been pushed back by China. Taiwan is important to China and the US is too occupied blockading Cuba, slaughtering Venezuelan and Iranian leadership, aiding the genocide of Gaza and the invasions of Syria and Lebanon etc., while its health secretary fights against vaccines.
kirab 2 days ago [-]
> Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country
This is as useful as saying both South Korea and North Korea have the policy that South Korea and North Korea are the same country. Which was actually true until a few years ago.
yogthos 2 days ago [-]
And just like in the case of Taiwan, they would be the same country if not for US invasion and continued occupation of the south. That's not hyperbole by the way, the military in the south is literally under US command.
bulbar 2 days ago [-]
It's still a misleading characterization of the situation.
When a foreign power controls a military of another nation, that's literally what occupation is.
bit-anarchist 1 days ago [-]
For starters, Taiwan wasn't invaded nor occupied by the US. South Korea wasn't invaded by the US either, unless you want to say the Soviet Union invaded the North. Even so, that would be, at least, an innacurate description of the events.
Furthermore, the technical definition for "military occupation", according to Hague Convention, S.3 Art.43:
Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
US is not a hostile army nor has established authority over SK's government and/or territory. In fact, US only controls the SK's army during wartime, which is not the case currently. The link you cite says US and SK are meeting together to negotiate the transition of wartime OPCON to SK as well, and US seems willing, even with Trump in power.
yogthos 18 hours ago [-]
For starters, Taiwan is a province of China where US currently sells weapons and has political capture. This would be akin to China placing weapons in Texas and openly supporting separatism there.
Second, the US absolutely did invade Korea. In September 1945, the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) took over the southern half of the peninsula. It ruled for three full years, outlawed local people's committees, and kept using the old Japanese colonial bureaucracy. That is a textbook military occupation. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the US provided 90 percent of all combat forces and placed the South Korean military under the operational control of an American general. There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s. It was a literal dictatorship.
That control has never truly gone away. Today, South Korea is under de facto US military occupation. The US runs Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US base on the planet, with its own postal service and currency. More importantly, the US controlled Combined Forces Command holds wartime operational control over the entire South Korean military. If fighting resumes, Seoul's army does not answer to Seoul, but to a four star American general. And a US dominated UN Command still publicly dictates what South Korea's parliament can legislate near the DMZ.
bit-anarchist 14 hours ago [-]
Taiwan is like Texas, if USA suffered a coup and the original ruling government took residence in Texas. In other words, not like today's Texas. Underpinning your comment is the notion that terrorities that once belonged to a nation should always belong to them forever more. That's textbox imperialism. You are also overselling US influence over Taiwan's politics, specially in regards to separatism. US isn't interested in an actual independent Taiwan, nor unification under the ROC.
In regards to the occupation argument, actual military occupation requires a hostile army, in which US's didn't qualify, even with their outlawing of PCs (which don't serve as actual represention for the Korea's populace, specially in the North, after the Soviets' actual colonialist meddling over them). We can agree that US's attempt to reestablish order was poorly done (by incompetence and/or constraints), but it objectively doesn't fit the criteria for military occupation. We can relax the conventional definition to include US's control, but that would include the USSR over the North.
In the Korean War, while USA may have provided troops, this was done by the ROK's request. In multiple times, USA was more than willing to leave ROK should it ask (or even let them). Even your citation shows this. You also use the phrase "There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s" as if USA was responsible for this. USAMGIK was already gone, replaced by ROK proper. Also it's wrong. ROK had two de facto republican regimes (five de jure) prior to the current one, but they were plagued by coup. Still, they had elections. And that's only considering presidential elections. Also, none of this, aside from the organization of the first democractic election, involved the US. So it wasn't a singular dictatorship (specially in comparison to NK), much less one US-controlled.
Even the "de facto" current occupation is wrong. Did you mean to say "de jure"? CFC might give a US general control during wartime, but that hasn't been the case since December 1994, and this might change relatively soon, as noted by the article you linked. UNC only has enough legitimate authority to facilitate diplomacy and keep the armistice and, as far as I can tell, US hasn't abused it. Finally, the existence of a military base of a foreign country isn't an indication of de jure occupation, even less so de facto. Only when this foreign country uses it as pressure and that results in visible policy changes it becomes evidence of occupation. Has that happened?
yogthos 6 hours ago [-]
[dead]
bit-anarchist 2 days ago [-]
I would add, however, the modern sentiment of the Taiwanese people is moving towards independence:
edit: although I probably wouldn't trust the source when reading about Middle East conflicts...
It was never a plural maritime system. The question is whether the oceans in question are US-dominated or Chinese-dominated.
That said, China has a long record of doing business with anyone and avoiding ideological conflict on all issues except for specifically Taiwan. They did business with Pinochet's Argentina in the 80s, while Argentina was throwing socialists out of helicopters and China was still fully communist. Unless you're a pure American forpol shill, there's no reason to suspect they'd restrict free passage in their area.
...and Tibet, North Korea, Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Aksai Chin/Arunachal Pradesh, and others.
I don't know why the authors said "indo-pacific" in a scare piece about China, I think the Indian Ocean would be a lot less relevant to the topic.
jstribune.com about page:
> The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune is a journal representing Israeli and American views about international affairs.
Hm interesting. Lets see who runs it.
Editorial Board
-Ahmed Charai, Chair -- Owner of the site, on multiple thinktank boards such as the atlantic council
-Jacob Heilbrunn, Co-Chair -- Another fellow of the atlantic council
-Dr. Daniel Samet -- Daniel J. Samet is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
-Melinda Haring -- a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center
-Dr. Eran Lerman -- former IDF colonel and a lecturer at Shalem College
Board of Directors
-Gen. James Jones -- 21st national security advisor under Obama.
-Ahmed Charai -- owner of the site again
-Admiral James Foggo III -- former US navy Admiral. Nice retirement spot, James
Board of Advisors
-Hon. Dov Zakheim, Chairman -- Various positions under Reagan
-Hon. John Hamre -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hamre
-Gen. Yaakov Amidror -- former major general and National Security Advisor of Israel
-- got tired of the bit around here --
-Ambassador Anne W. Patterson
-Ambassador Eric Edelman
-Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan
-Ambassador Atul Keshap
-Gen. Ruth Yaron
-Dan Meridor
Anyway, the goal here was to point out articles like this don't come from journalistic backgrounds, but thinktank policy makers. The intention of pieces like this is to launder official government opinion as a semi-legitimate news source. Think "Radio Free Asia".
I'd play this game with those articles, where every article would cite a little essay like this on a similar thinktank site or the actual Zenz study. No new journalism, just rehashing reports like this.
This isn't a conspiracy, it's an industry made up of ex-insiders who maintain relationships and pedal the talking points.
And....you see that essays often include citations. And that's proof of a dark network of the illuminated?
Maybe these were all just essays?
> This isn't a conspiracy, it's
It's not X it's Y
Buddy....
Here's the author of the essay by the way: https://x.com/RaghuKondori/status/1877616501395505259?s=20
He has multiple books with AI covers, loony-adjacent nonsense ideology, prolifically posts on X @ing politicians and posting AI images.
He even has his own thinktank: https://shahvand.org/en/
He's also a Reza Pahlavi crank, you know, the Maryland Shah. https://shahvand.org/en/pahlavi-will-return/
Yes, China claims Taiwan and China are the same country. Not mentioned is that US policy also says that Taiwan and China are the same country. In fact Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country. You would think reading this that Taiwan had declared independence from China as a separate country.
Also on the topic of "simply an island" - Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan, they are on Kinmen island in the harbor of Xiamen on the mainland PRC. This would be like Manhattan receiving imperial proclamations about its "sovereignty" from China.
The fact is Taiwan was Chinese long before the United States even existed, just like the Russian Navy has been in Crimea since before the US existed. The US funded and armed separatist forces - but in 1900 the US was raising its flag in Beijing's imperial city. The historical development is these imperial intrusions have been pushed back by China. Taiwan is important to China and the US is too occupied blockading Cuba, slaughtering Venezuelan and Iranian leadership, aiding the genocide of Gaza and the invasions of Syria and Lebanon etc., while its health secretary fights against vaccines.
This is as useful as saying both South Korea and North Korea have the policy that South Korea and North Korea are the same country. Which was actually true until a few years ago.
When a foreign power controls a military of another nation, that's literally what occupation is.
Furthermore, the technical definition for "military occupation", according to Hague Convention, S.3 Art.43:
US is not a hostile army nor has established authority over SK's government and/or territory. In fact, US only controls the SK's army during wartime, which is not the case currently. The link you cite says US and SK are meeting together to negotiate the transition of wartime OPCON to SK as well, and US seems willing, even with Trump in power.Second, the US absolutely did invade Korea. In September 1945, the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) took over the southern half of the peninsula. It ruled for three full years, outlawed local people's committees, and kept using the old Japanese colonial bureaucracy. That is a textbook military occupation. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the US provided 90 percent of all combat forces and placed the South Korean military under the operational control of an American general. There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s. It was a literal dictatorship.
That control has never truly gone away. Today, South Korea is under de facto US military occupation. The US runs Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US base on the planet, with its own postal service and currency. More importantly, the US controlled Combined Forces Command holds wartime operational control over the entire South Korean military. If fighting resumes, Seoul's army does not answer to Seoul, but to a four star American general. And a US dominated UN Command still publicly dictates what South Korea's parliament can legislate near the DMZ.
In regards to the occupation argument, actual military occupation requires a hostile army, in which US's didn't qualify, even with their outlawing of PCs (which don't serve as actual represention for the Korea's populace, specially in the North, after the Soviets' actual colonialist meddling over them). We can agree that US's attempt to reestablish order was poorly done (by incompetence and/or constraints), but it objectively doesn't fit the criteria for military occupation. We can relax the conventional definition to include US's control, but that would include the USSR over the North.
In the Korean War, while USA may have provided troops, this was done by the ROK's request. In multiple times, USA was more than willing to leave ROK should it ask (or even let them). Even your citation shows this. You also use the phrase "There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s" as if USA was responsible for this. USAMGIK was already gone, replaced by ROK proper. Also it's wrong. ROK had two de facto republican regimes (five de jure) prior to the current one, but they were plagued by coup. Still, they had elections. And that's only considering presidential elections. Also, none of this, aside from the organization of the first democractic election, involved the US. So it wasn't a singular dictatorship (specially in comparison to NK), much less one US-controlled.
Even the "de facto" current occupation is wrong. Did you mean to say "de jure"? CFC might give a US general control during wartime, but that hasn't been the case since December 1994, and this might change relatively soon, as noted by the article you linked. UNC only has enough legitimate authority to facilitate diplomacy and keep the armistice and, as far as I can tell, US hasn't abused it. Finally, the existence of a military base of a foreign country isn't an indication of de jure occupation, even less so de facto. Only when this foreign country uses it as pressure and that results in visible policy changes it becomes evidence of occupation. Has that happened?
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/...
In fact, both the majority of the Taiwanese people and the current government are against unification.