from MicroWave@lemmy.world to world@lemmy.world on 16 Sep 2024 19:06
https://lemmy.world/post/19843166
An escalating series of clashes in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China could draw the U.S., which has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, into the conflict.
A 60 Minutes crew got a close look at the tense situation when traveling on a Philippine Coast Guard ship that was rammed by the Chinese Coast Guard.
China has repeatedly rammed Philippine ships and blasted them with water cannons over the last two years. There are ongoing conversations between Washington and Manila about which scenarios would trigger U.S. involvement, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro said in an interview.
“I really don’t know the end state,” Teodoro said. “All I know is that we cannot let them get away with what they’re doing.”
China as “the proverbial schoolyard bully”
China claims sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea, through which more than $3 trillion in goods flow annually. But in 2016, an international tribunal at the Hague ruled the Philippines has exclusive economic rights in a 200-mile zone that includes the area where the ship with the 60 Minutes team on board got rammed.
China does not recognize the international tribunal’s ruling.
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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/philippines-china-sea-conflict-us-role-60-minutes/
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WW3, great for profits!
Care to explain what you mean by that?
War is a racket. Great book
Rule (of acquisition) 34 brah.
Just think of all that gold-pressed latinum…
Except, China is not trying to expand its territorial waters “because capitalism”…
Chinas already fully capitalistic.
I’m aware…but it’s still not the reason they are attempting to expand their territorial waters…
Why are they attempting to expand their territorial waters?
It’s about expanding their ability to project naval power in general, but more specifically, trying to to build effective defensive counters against potential future naval blockades and maritime containment e.g. Island Chain Strategy
That’s oversimplified, and there are other aspects to it, including domestic political cultural ones, but naval power and national security is the most significant.
I am not taking any position on justification, legal standing, or strategic prudence for this strategy.
There are any number of white papers, from both Chinese and American security organizations/think-tanks, that will cover the subject in much greater depth if you’re interested.
That sounds like a lot of words to say capitalism.
Are you saying that national security strategies, and war in general, didn’t appear in this world until capitalism emerged?
I'm saying that those stratigies are being executed to support their capitalist ambitions. You need freedom of the seas to ensure trade and they're enhancing their power projection capabilities to ensure they'll be free to continue trading in the event of forgein interfere.
It's the exact same reason the United States enacts similar "national security strategies".
That statement is so incredibly wrong in this particular context that it’s actually impressive.
Well, maybe not impressive, but it does show off your ability to speak authoritatively on a topic that you know absolutely nothing about, except of course for your firm conviction that capitalism is clearly the only thing motivating it all.
People understand the importance of the Malacca straight, Taiwan, and the various islands in that region. It’s the same reason Japan rapidly expanded into that region during WW2, bringing unimaginable suffering to the people in that region.
Maybe you aren’t making this point, and sorry if you aren’t, but that strategic interest does not give China the right to illegally sieze territory to suit itself. That is imperaliam. That is what Russia is doing in Ukraine and it is absolutely wrong.
Why does China not try to make allies in the region
The modern context of Japanese and Chinese expansionism in this particular area is similar in some ways, but very different in other ways.
Regardless, I agree that China doesn’t have the legal right to seize territory, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t understand their perspective.
It also doesn’t make the idiotic reductionist take that this is all “capitalism”, any less idiotic.
All that said, I also understand that great powers tend to only talk about international law when they are applying it to countries they view as beneath them, or inferior.
In this case, China is coming into its own as a regional hegemon, assuming their relatively new status as an outright dictatorship doesn’t fuck that up. To do that, it has to push out American naval power, there’s no alternative for them.
So, if Xi’s one man politburo figures out how to walk and chew gum, while also driving a successful regional expansion, I don’t think yours, or my, quibbles about international law will make much difference.
Luckily, whether he’s capable of juggling all that successfully, is still an open question with a lot of doubt.
China has been an outright dictatorship for a while now, it’s just the lifetime leader that was recent.
Words have meanings, and the word you’re looking for is authoritarian, but that doesn’t mean it was a dictatorship.
They were a one party system, that had regularly transitioned power at scheduled intervals for decades. Which means they were not a dictatorship, until Xi stopped those transitions of power.
You’re right, words do have meaning. Just because there is a transition from one dictator to another without bloodshed or death doesn’t mean it isn’t a dictatorship. Just because the dictator of the week is chosen by a committee doesn’t mean it isn’t a dictatorship. One-party systems are commonly accepted to be dictatorships because of the lack of ability by the people to choose their leader, rather it is chosen by the party (usually the party elites).
I know it’s cliche, but I really think you need to go look up the the definition of dictator.
Or, crack a political science 101 book and skip right to the section on political systems.
Or maybe your misunderstanding is just a lack of knowledge of how China’s government structure functioned post-Mao, pre-Xi.
Whatever the reason, I think you need to do a little bit of reading, but it’s not like you’re alone in this misconception so I don’t mean this as an insult.
Do you mean like the summary in Wikipedia? Or how about the Democracy-Dictatorship Index? It seems a lot of people in political circles have been calling China a civilian dictatorship for at least 36 years, just based on the cute little pictures.
Feel free to read a definition that’s more than one sentence long if you want an explanation for something as nuanced as political systems.
Your first link shows exactly why the CCP wasn’t a dictatorship in the era the preceded Xi, and your second link has nothing to do with that era at all.
I have an academic background in this field, so the idea that my understanding is based on reading a single sentence, or a few Wikipedia entries, is amusing.
Here’s a nice simple infographic article that would be a good starting point before jumping into any dry academic readings.
My first link has the following quote:
China has been a one-party state for the last 75 years, so the only question is whether or not it was also a dictatorship.
My second link has an infographic labeling China as a civilian dictatorship in 1988, which is prior to Xi putting himself in absolute authority, so how does it have nothing to do with the era prior to Xi taking absolute authority?
As for the handy little link you provided, that only talks about Xi, and we’re agreed that he is a dictator running a dictatorship, so, while it’s interesting, I’m not sure of the relevance unless your proposal is the the only thing that qualifies as a dictatorship is if it’s run by a single individual. In which case, it seems there are a number of people in your purported field who disagree with that stance.
So…you couldn’t even be bothered to read more than a few paragraphs?
Dictatorships don’t have legal and systemic checks against the autocratic rule, which is why Xi removed them.
You’re using a lot of words, but they’re based on your lack of understanding post-Mao CCP goverence that Xi upended when he seized power.
But I’m done going back and forth on this. You should feel free to go on believing that I am wrong, and that you are right, because I have no confidence that you would read any dry academic writings on the topic that I respond with, as you couldn’t even make it through a few hundred words of a NYT article.
Meanwhile, any question I ask that has a simple answer is ignored. Why was it commonly believed that China was a civilian dictatorship in 1988, more than a few years after Mao and Dengs time? Why is the one-party state of China not considered a dictatorship when one-party states are?
This entire conversation has been moving goalposts, and every time I defined the goalposts clearly enough to not be moved, you simply ran in another direction. I may not have gotten a university degree, but you’ve still done an amazingly poor job of defending your thesis.
I will give you points on the checks and balances applied after Mao reducing the risks of harm from the dictatorship of China, but the definition of a dictatorship doesn’t rely on the benevolence of the leadership, merely the lack of power of the people to change it, which was not negated by dividing the powers of government between different levels.
I imagine that doing research on the fly for a back and forth on CCP governance, forced you to rapidly consume a bunch of half-assed Wikipedia articles, and that flood of new information felt similar to a moving goal post of sorts, but that’s in your head.
Regardless, I started, and ended, at the same position… It’s the same one that I will lay out one final time: post-Mao, pre-Xi China was not a dictatorship.
From your source:
Now, you saw the word uniparty on the Wikipedia entry for dictatorships, and assumed that applied to all uniparty government’s, but it does not.
Other metrics have to be met before it can be considered a dictatorship, for example the USSR under Stalin was a dictatorship, but not under Gorbachev. The USSR was still a repressive authoritarian one-party state, but Gorbachev was not an unaccountable autocrat without systemic checks or limits on his power.
So, back to China:
Here’s a list of Chinese presidents, but you can probably skip down to the 4th Constitution, which is the start of the era you keep bringing up.
en.m.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_presidents_of_China
Notice that these leaders come from competing factions and groups within the CCP, some more conservative, some more liberal, but more importantly, they transition power at regular intervals, well, until Xi.
So you can call them totalitarian technocrats, or authoritarian capitalists, but you can’t call them communists, and you definitely cannot call them dictators.
All that aside, I don’t know why some factual inaccuracies become commonly believed, but I guess the simple answer would be a lack of education, or interest.
Maybe a better question would be why it is you put so much faith in the average layperson’s understanding of subjects such as the history of CCP governance, or the political economies of post-Mao China…?
Edit: this isn’t a thesis I’m defending, it’s a non-controversial fact, that I resent spending so much effort to reiterate, but that’s my fault for engaging.
Imagine that your position is that the Earth is flat, and no matter what I say, you respond by telling me that my thesis regarding a theory of a round earth hasn’t been sufficiently argued.
Because that’s what’s been going on here, you’re a flat earther of post-Mao Chinese political theory.
They’re probably saying war was only invented after there were enough resources in one place that the risk of going to war made sense.
Money is akin to resources, so yes…
And they’re right about it.
This does fail to mention the huge oil and gas reserves in the area that China is trying to capitalise on.
Resources are a bigger driver than military showmanship.
I’ve been saying for over a year that a much easier, and less politically suicidal, way for Xi to beat the island chain defense is to take back the Vladivostok oblast. It was part of China not even 150 years ago, there is a significant percentage, possibly even a plurality, of Han descended people, and it’s not like Russia is gonna have the army to stop a special military operation, or any allies to get upset about it.
Given Putin’s theory that nations comprise a set of territory they’ve historically held–Ukraine and Alaska being “rightfully” Russia’s–he surely wouldn’t object to China taking this part, right? And Kaliningrad goes back to Germany? He’ll be good with all that, right?
Just “because nationalism”
Doesn’t mean it’s not profitable, though!
Fill dummy boat full of explosives.
At that point just launch a missile at them.
This is a stupid game of chicken. China is bullying their way into what they want hoping they’ll get it. Once you use explosives, they’ll use explosives. That’s why right now it is ramming and water cannons.
The annoying part is the US talking about “what constitutes defense and needs US involvement” when it already is way past that point.
If they can assert their ownership of the SCS now, they can hold that even as other nations get stronger.
But if they can’t nail it down now, they’ve lost it forever and will always be a regional power, constrained by maritime neighbors.
Xi is apparently a gambler, and not a good one.
china claims contested area and rams opposers with their ships. EVIL. Israel claims contested area and genocides anyone who opposes. Good guys actually!
WHAT ABOUT
They are both horrible war crimes and should be treated as such.
and yet look at the votes to work out how even on this platform only some crimes are seen as bad.
I don’t think “Israel does bad things, therefore China doesn’t” is very a rational position…
did i say that? Use your votes properly and admit that if you call what china does bad then you MUST ALSO CALL OUT OTHER EVILS!
Do you think we don’t talk about Israeli genocide here?
Because we do. Constantly.
Also, what votes?
this platform is ENTIRELY based on votes! i never said china wasnt bad! you just put text in my keyboard. your arguments are fake and you should feel bad about that!
What votes? Are you talking about upvoting and downvoting comments? Why do you give a shit about fake internet points?
that is literally the basis to this platform. if you dont use them properly then you are a problem here as you enshitten the service. LEARN TO USE THE PLATFORM YOU ARE USING!
No it isn’t. The basis of this platform is being federated forums. Up and downvotes mean absolutely nothing. If every person on every lemmy server downvoted this comment, it wouldn’t change a thing. Lemmy doesn’t even hide massively downvoted comments like Reddit does.
And considering I’m a moderator in this community, I’d say that being so uncivil to me (against community rules) would be not learning how to use this platform.
Okay, time for you to take a break.
You’re about to get called out, then.
Stop being yourself. It’s distasteful and rude.
Completely irrelevant.
Self reference, nice.
Since mods removed my comment but failed to elaborate why, I’m going to repost it.
Brings to mind the dichotomy of the Russian and Israeli invasions. Ivans blow up a school, and it’s a warcrime. Schlomos blow up a school, and it’s due to their inherent right to self defense.
The comment may not be entirely related to the article directly, but why have a world news community if not for discussing world events?
*“
EastWest Philippine Sea”West*
cheers
🎶 Iiiinn west Philippine Sea born and raised.
The Phillipines needs to put down a few sea mines with Phillipine flags on top. Nobody would be stupid enough to run those over.
It’s a shipping lane, so no.