Miscellaneous News

A nice clip!

It is Ameri-cracy!

Laviduce said:

There are US nuclear weapons in South Korea !!!!?????

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I don't know -- but recalling the US troops however limited in Taiwan, who knows... nothing is completely out of possibility by the Empire.

gelgoog said:

With regards to Germany. I have to remind you of two things. Stalin proposed to make Germany a unified neutral country after WW2. The US refused. After Stalin died Beria proposed much the same. The US again refused.

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Regarding Germany, this concise article is quite interesting, a must read indeed:

Kaeshmiri said:

Empty threat probably to nudge India. US hate for China far exceeds their disdain for Russia. They'll never ever sanction India for anything, Afterall the West needs a lapdog in South Asia to use against China.

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The thing is that they also know India will operate independently and not follow the "rule based order " once it also becomes a China size economy and power.

Phead128 said:

US successfully moved the goalpost from simple majority (50%) to super majority (66%) within the rules of UN Charter by using tricky parliamentary gimmick to thwart the majority, but US did not have veto over the entire democratic will of UNGA. It cannot override UNGA or else what is the difference between UN and League of Nations without rules and preocedures to follow?


Notice the weasel word "some kind of"?
Yes, strong aspects of democracy is what differeniates the failed League of Nations from the United Nations so it's wildly convenient you use some weasel word to distract from a legitimate mechanism to counterbalance superpower abuse.

Fair enough.

Hard disagree. US could achieve their objectives with PRC and ROC entering as "Two China" proposal, not necessarily required PRC replacing ROC. It's not a necessary byproduct of "diplomacy" to eject ROC entirely from UN. But guess what, that US attempt to keep ROC inside UN under "Two China " was defeated, so don't tell me US wanted diplomacy by replacing PRC with ROC. It was reluctantly forced to accept it as a fait accompli.

Yes, literally every single year since 1950, a vote for PRC admission would occur in UNGA requiring a simple majority (50%) and the gap would grow narrower and narrower. from six in favor and 33 opposed in 1950 to 34 in favor and 42 opposed (with 22 more abstaining) in 1960 according to this

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. Without this gradually narrowing of the gap due to international goodwill, US would not have been pressured into moving goalposts to a supermajority (66%). US saw the momentum shifting towards PRC admission each year, and reacted by manipulating the rules to thwart a majority and raising to 66% threshold as well as introduced a failed attempt at a "Two China" solution.

Circumstantial evidence at best. It does not prove that the only natural avenue for diplomacy was replacement of ROC by PRC. US tried to push aggressively for a "Two China" solution but got defeated at UNGA.

Hard disagree. US tried to push aggressively for a "Two China" solution but got defeated at UNGA. Don't pretend that US graciously gifted ROC seat to PRC as a pre-requisite for normalization, when it was handed a defeat as a fait accompli by UNGA, despite tripping over it's own dick to fight it till the last minute.

Too simple, too naive. Sino-American reapproachment is only partial explanatory variable, but the shifting of democratic opinion of UNGA played a big role in US eventually accepting PRC admission as a fait accompli. Soviet Union even voted in favor of PRC admission (with US voting no) so why are you exaggerating the Sino-American alliance and Sino-Soviet Split with your Cold war allusion. What US didn't expect was it's last ditch 'Two China' proposal to be defeated. It had no other choice but to accept the ejection of ROC. It didn't do so because it wanted to, it fought aggressively against it till the very minute, but thankfully the UNGA willpower prevailed over US dirty tactics.

I suggest reading this excellent article for full story.

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You're basically arguing that UNGA nations were voting out of principle rather than self-interest.

If you're naive enough to believe that, that's fine, but what is your argument about, exactly? You were talking about how the resolution to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine was going to result in the loss of Russia's UNSC seat.

tokenanalyst said:

All comeback to NATO.

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OPINION / VIEWPOINT

Making Sense of the Ukrainian Crisis

By Yi Xin - 02 MAR 2022





Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in late February is very much likely to reshape the international strategic landscape. All parties are vying for the upper hand in this game-changing moment. The situation in Ukraine has led to a new round of considerable rethinking and debate across the world.

In the ensuing global debate on the Ukrainian situation, many wonder what China has to say.

Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has stated China's five-point position, which boils down to two essential elements: Number one, the purposes and principles of the UN Charter must be upheld, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries respected. Number two, differences must be resolved through dialogue and negotiation. Everything happens for a reason. Attending to the root is the only right way to solve any issue once and for all.

This is actually China's consistent foreign policy, a commitment that stands the test of the time.

War is never a good solution. As we feel for the Ukrainian people, it is also imperative for us to get to the bottom of this crisis.

The West focuses mostly on the current operation launched by Russia. Few are asking the real question: WHY and HOW did things get to this point?

The Ukrainian crisis on the surface is about Russian and Ukraine. If you look a bit closer, you may come to realize that it is essentially between Russia and the United States. As pointed out by Thomas Friedman, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, "America and NATO aren't innocent bystanders (in this crisis)" .

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States for some time appeared to have embraced Russia with open arms. Russia, on its part, had also tried quite many means to get along with the United States and NATO.

However, NATO's five rounds of eastward expansion have approached the border of Russia. Ukraine, once joining NATO, could be home to weapon system deployed by the United States. This would be the geopolitical equivalent of a knife to the throat for Russia. So Russia's response would hardly be a surprise to the United States.

Moreover, the United States keeps providing all kinds of military equipment to Ukraine, and the latter is indicating its intention to develop nuclear weapons.

To back down and await its doom or to stand up to fight. For Russia, this is a do-or-die decision.

Putin already gave his answer — to respond in kind, with brute forces, to US overbearance. In the words of Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, former UN independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, the United States and NATO over the years have broken international law so often that "precedents of permissibility" have been set for Russia.

For people with commonsense of history and international relations, it's not hard to see that for the United States, Ukraine is nothing more than a pawn to contain Russia.

As early as in 1997, George Kennan, or "the Father of Containment", presciently admonished that "expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era". In 2014, Dr. Henry Kissinger publicly warned that if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it should not make a choice between the East and the West and must not be either side's outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them and not join NATO. Unfortunately, these words were lost on American decision-makers.

Former US congresswoman and 2020 presidential election candidate Tulsi Gabbard made things abundantly clear in a recent interview. She said that President Biden could end this crisis and prevent a war with Russia by doing something very simple: guaranteeing that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. But the US would not make that promise to stop the war, because military actions on the part of Russia would give the Biden administration a clear excuse to levy draconian sanctions against Russia, and the military-industrial complex reaps enormous benefits from this. It is the people of the United States, the people of Russia and the people of Ukraine who bear the brunt.

In a TV address, President Zelensky said dejectedly, "We have been left alone to defend our state". "Who is ready to fight alongside us? I don't see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid." He added. The cruelty of international politics is laid bare. A pawn is always dispensable.

Every life matters. The people have been awakened. They don't deserve to be sacrifices of geopolitics. What has happened and what is unfolding before our eyes proves time and again that it is only when common, comprehensive security is guaranteed that there will be durable, sustainable security for all. It is high time that relevant parties got more sober-minded strategically.


The author is a current affairs commentator based in Beijing.

daifo said:

The thing is that they also know India will operate independently and not follow the "rule based order " once it also becomes a China size economy and power.

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At the moment, the US needs both India and Vietnam to help containing China. They would overlook a lot of things. India is still not there yet. India is like China in the 80s.

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I love how these Western media pretends to be fair, objective, and impartial , then produces garbage like this. Reuters for you.

Bonny Lin, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said it was unclear how much Xi knew about Putin's intentions.

She noted that China had been to slow to evacuate citizens from Ukraine, which suggested it was not fully prepared.

"Given the evidence we have so far, I think we can't rule out either possibility definitely – that Xi didn't know (which is bad) and that Xi may have known (which is also bad)," she said [

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If China didn't know about invasion, it's bad. If China know about invasion, it's bad. No matter what China does, China is bad. This is from an "China Expert" from US think tank btw. The West is so desperate to rope China in, even China didn't do jack shit so far.