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The US is quietly arming Taiwan to the teeth
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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The one other one is a democracy, despite being a flawed one. The other, an unabashedly totalitarian state. And before any CCP apologists comments and nevermind what the domestic Chinese think, ask South Korea, Japan and South East Asia what they think of the Chinese Communist Party claiming the entirety of South China Sea and sending armed merchant vessels and the Chinese navy bullying other Asian fishermen in the region. Not to excuse American imperialism, but it's clear which is the better option for many.
너 지금 한국에 사는 사람한테 답하는 거야...
Do you speak on behalf the population of South Korea?
No, but I thought it was funny someone likely from the West tried to use that argument when I suggested the idea of a weapon deployment next door might make you uneasy
Philippines in the 1990s have elected to kick out the Americans from their bases in the country. Back then, there was strong nationalist sentiment against American troops being stationed. Fast forward to twenty years later, many Filipinos have been blaming the past government with hindsight that they should have let the Americans stay because China took the opportunity to camp in an shoal within the Philippines' legally recognised maritime borders. If the Americans had remained, China would not have been so bold to violate other country's borders.
That's the problem with realpolitik. If it's not one country or entity, another would prey on the weak. That's might be a poor analogy considering what I would say next but the point stands. And the American bases, it's not like US unilaterally set up bases in hundreds of locations across the world. There is given permission by these countries hosting military forces. Of course, nation states still being tribalistic and only after their own interests, others feel it is an affront to see such bases next door. Even the nuclear missiles about to be set up in Cuba in the 1960s, Cuba invited the Soviet Union to do so, not that the Soviet Union unilaterally decided to set up the nukes in the island. Cuba and Soviet Union have mutual interest. The former needs a deterrent to prevent another American inteference, while the latter wants leverage on the US to be convinced remove the missiles from Turkey.
Why don't we ask South America, the Middle East, and Vietnam what they think about the US?
.... American tax dollars are at this moment funding the genocide of Palestinians.
EDIT to add: I should clarify I'm no CCP apologist, nor do I uplift China as an example of what we should strive for. But I also really get tired of seeing America put on a pedestal. America was built on genocide, slavery, and exploitation, I don't see how it should ever be an example of how to do things better, BECAUSE that line of reasoning ("at least we're better than them") has been used to justify many of the horrors of our history.
By using that bit of propaganda, you're contributing to things like Americans looking the other way/enabling - for the past 75 years - genocide. It's the same "they're savages" shit that was used to justify literally the most savage acts against Native Americans.
Our democracy also isn't actual democracy. By definition, a democracy must represent the will of the people. Ours does not. It is already a failed democracy, and has been for my entire life. America also produces more propaganda than any other country. Do we have more personal freedoms in many areas than people in China? Absolutely. Are there many areas throughout society where I think America has pushed the world forward and made it a better place? Absolutely.
But I'm getting really sick of seeing America compared to China just to say "we're better".
Funny you should ask
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2015/04/30/vietnamese-see-u-s-as-key-ally/
Yeah I shouldn't have used Vietnam as an example bc I am aware that they're somehow largely favorable to the US still, but the lasting effects of US imperialism on the population there is what I was really trying to get at.
Past atrocities does not justify today's actions by another at the present time. US hasn't been meddling Latin America since the cold war. In Asia Pacific, US isn't the one who is bullying Japan, South Korea and SE Asia. And funny you mentioned Vietnam, as someone already said that Vietnam view US favourably in spite of history, the former actually dislike China more than the US. Vietnam has a much longer historical animosity with China than the with the US. At present, US and Vietnam have mutual interests in containing China.
Cuba and Venezuela are both in Latino America. And both have being targeted by the US as "cold" enemies.
I'm not saying that. I'm saying that holding America up as a standard and saying that we're somehow better is hypocritical and dangerous because it helps to justify/overlook shit like what's happening in Palestine rn, and I'm sick of the general mindset exactly because it has helped lead to the ignorance and complacency we see with a genocide that is fueled largely by American desire to retain influence in that region for capitalistic purposes, with no regard for human rights.
I mean yeah no shit, they've been at it for thousands of years lmao.
And, as I've said elsewhere I was more getting at the human rights atrocities perpetrated by the US which still have great effect on Vietnam.
I'm in no way trying to justify anything. Again, I'm just saying I'm sick of seeing people hold the US up as "hey look we're better" because I really don't know that we are. We care about human rights at home, to an extent, but we don't give af who that affects in other parts of the world. Is that really better than China pretending to care about it's citizens with communism while abusing their human rights and exercising insane governmental control over their lives?
The US has been and continues to be the direct and indirect perpetrator of a lot of evils, and the more I learn about these things, the more I dislike seeing America characterized as a standard of morality, because it directly reflects propaganda which has allowed for many of these atrocities to happen.
No one is holding US as the gold standard. But with the present dog-eat-dog realpolitik, the US is seen as the "least of all evils". Last time I checked, a survey carried out across the world said most still prefer the US than China or Russia. In my opinion, it's better to have a multipolar world to stop the current set up humanity is having right now.
Greetings from Hanoi. The Vietnamese in general view the USA quite favorably. Much more so than they feel about China which is regularly killing their fishermen and destroying VN oil and mineral development facilities. The 1000 years of Chinese occupation seems to have also left a bit of a bad taste.
Taiwan is a full democracy, not a flawed one. At least according to the widely respected Economist Democracy Index.
Taiwan is more democratic than Canada and Germany. And a lot more than the US, but that's not surprising.