The Republic of China: Taiwan is an Independent Nation

[wuapinmon]

Taiwan is not part of China. I don't want to go to war over that fact, but the right of a people to self-determination should be respected. China's bellicose rhetoric about Taiwan being a part of it doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. We need only look to Hong Kong and Macau to see how the PROC has respected treaties to maintain separate rights.

I support the sale of state-of-the-art weapons to Taiwan to defend itself from an ever-looming Chinese invasion threat. I do not support stationing American troops there or otherwise involving our military. My son (and no one else's) will not die in a war on foreign soil. I'll buy a house in Costa Rica and park him there for the duration before I'd let that happen.

We can use this thread to discuss Taiwan's nation status and how China is a bully and their Winnie-the-Poohesque leader, Xi Jinping, is a dictator who enriches himself and his family to grotesque levels through graft and embezzlement. Basically, Xi Jinping is a big baby who has seized power because the Chinese government is too weak-willed to resist his domination.

[wuapinmon]

https://eurasiantimes.com/taiwan-inv...g-of-military/

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently practiced loading various military vehicles on non-military vessels of a state-owned shipbuilder industry, according to a recent video by state-owned CCTV. This signals a rising trend of using civilian ships for military training.

The drill involved the docking of several military vehicles, including heavy armor and infantry vehicles, and took place at the dispatch center of the Zhengzhou Joint Logistics Support Center.

It was touted as a logistic exercise involving loading and unloading military vehicles.

The civilian vessels belonged to the state-owned COSCO Shipping. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) boasts one of the biggest shipping industries in the world and owns a record number of civilian ships with robust year-on-year growth.

In what could be a recipe for trouble in the Indo-Pacific, China is increasingly pressing its civilian vessels for military duty. This is significant as it comes at a time of heightened military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait and growing tensions with the United States.

At the time, Chinese defense enthusiasts stated that the move resembled what seemed to be an extensive preparation for an invasion of Taiwan.

[Uncle Ted]

Macron says, "You are on your own, Joe."

Europe must resist pressure to become ‘America’s followers,’ says Macron
The ‘great risk’ Europe faces is getting ‘caught up in crises that are not ours,’ French president says in interview.

urope must reduce its dependency on the United States and avoid getting dragged into a confrontation between China and the U.S. over Taiwan, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview on his plane back from a three-day state visit to China.

Speaking with POLITICO and two French journalists after spending around six hours with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his trip, Macron emphasized his pet theory of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, presumably led by France, to become a “third superpower.”

He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.

He said “the great risk” Europe faces is that it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours, which prevents it from building its strategic autonomy,” while flying from Beijing to Guangzhou, in southern China, aboard COTAM Unité, France’s Air Force One.
[...]

https://www.politico.eu/article/emma...ure-interview/

Embedded Tweet

[Jeff Lebowski]

Macron says, "You are on your own, Joe."

Just for the record, do you agree with what Macron said?

[Uncle Ted]

Just for the record, do you agree with what Macron said?

Yes, the EU "must reduce its dependency on the United States" and kick them out of NATO.

[frank ryan]

Yes, the EU "must reduce its dependency on the United States" and kick them out of NATO.

You don't understand what NATO is

[Uncle Ted]

You don't understand what NATO is

Sure I do... it's over $800b/yr for the US which the EU has grown dependent on:

USvsEU.png
We need to help the EU break that dependency, stop killing our young and/or pissing away their future on wars. Once the dollar is dropped as the world's reserve currency our debt will make us like the former soviet union... a former union broken by overwhelming debt.

[frank ryan]

Sure I do... it's over $800b/yr for the US which the EU has grown dependent on:

USvsEU.png
We need to help the EU break that dependency, stop killing our young and/or pissing away their future on wars. Once the dollar is dropped as the world's reserve currency our debt will make us like the former soviet union... a former union broken by overwhelming debt.

No Ted, you really don't.

[Bo Diddley]

Sure I do... it's over $800b/yr for the US which the EU has grown dependent on:

The US spends half its federal budget on NATO? Who knew?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Sure I do... it's over $800b/yr for the US which the EU has grown dependent on:

Now do it based on percentage of GDP.

We need to help the EU break that dependency, stop killing our young and/or pissing away their future on wars. Once the dollar is dropped as the world's reserve currency our debt will make us like the former soviet union... a former union broken by overwhelming debt.

Stop killing our young? When was the last time we lost soldiers in a NATO war?

Yeah, let's pull out of NATO and let the Russian empire go wild and gobble up countries, control the middle east, africa, etc. Genius!

[Jeff Lebowski]

The US spends half its federal budget on NATO? Who knew?

Lol. They are counting the entire US defense budget. Lol @ Uncle Ted's maps.

[Uncle Ted]

Now do it based on percentage of GDP.



Stop killing our young? When was the last time we lost soldiers in a NATO war?

Yeah, let's pull out of NATO and let the Russian empire go wild and gobble up countries, control the middle east, africa, etc. Genius!

The entire Middle East conflict was a NATO war and over 7000 US soldiers died there. (Given how Saudi Arabia and Iran are now buddies we will most likely be heading back there especially when Israel starts nuking Iran.) And given how Biden is handling Ukraine we will be in that one before long. Kiss your kids and grandkids goodbye before they get drafted.

[beefytee]

I assume you are talking about Afganistan and Iraq. Plenty of NATO countries did not participate in Iraq. It definitely wasn't a NATO operation. And as far as Afghanistan goes, the terrorist attacks were considered an attack on the US, so NATO countries were obligated to help out the US in the conflict. So, the US benefitted there. They were the only country that didn't have obligations.

[Bo Diddley]

The entire Middle East conflict was a NATO war and over 7000 US soldiers died there. (Given how Saudi Arabia and Iran are now buddies we will most likely be heading back there especially when Israel starts nuking Iran.) And given how Biden is handling Ukraine we will be in that one before long. Kiss your kids and grandkids goodbye before they get drafted.

The next conflict is with China. And we're actually engaged with them right now. We're not actively fighting military v military yet, but they are allocating a ton of resources right now to fight against us in other domains.

[Bo Diddley]

Here's an unclassified briefing that was done by one of our Air Guard officers. He gave this briefing to us at our latest Officer Development session.