Quote (Hamsterbaby @ Feb 27 2023 09:17pm)
Ok now you are going back to how you talk three months back.
Let me explain my point of view.
Whether is there a Chinese base in Solomon Islands or not is a decision that is made between two sovereign countries in a strategic partnership.
The same can be said between Ukraine and Nato / EU it is their sovereign decision and their government's decision.
Whether the US /Australia or Russia feeling threaten has got nothing to do with Sovereign nations making their own decisions.
That being said, because these are superpowers we are talking about, they work in a different manner and more often than not, goes against the United Nations and rules that are being laid out. This is a reality, it is something we cannot prevent.
That is why I would like to have more Super powers, USA , EU ( without NATO ) , Russia , Asean , United Africa and even United South America to keep everyone in check.
To understand why some of us are Anti West, which we are not. We are just Anti US Government.
I don't see the Chinese or even us in South East Asia being Anti EU, Anti Australia, Anti Scotland etc etc. This is where I think you get it quite wrong. It is not Anti West. It is Anti US Government.
The Vietnam war was a pragmatic move by the United States, a lot of people are against it , but there are also some of us who are happy that it happened. Because it prevented and exhausted the Red Wave from moving down South to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
The Ukraine war is , in my opinion is a Democrat led event and I look at it more as a personal reason to trigger it by some bigwigs in the American political scene rather then something strategic.
Like I said, although Trump is not the most savvy President. He would have prevented it from happening. And Putin would have sat down and made some arrangements and negotiations and this wouldn't have happened.
This is just my opinion.
As for China and Taiwan. It is basically and technically a North and South Korea.
It is a ceasefire.
North and South Korea will reunify one day , whether in the next 50 or 100 years they will still reunify.
The same goes for China and Taiwan.
The only numbers we will be concern with is how many people will be dead if the reunification isn't peaceful.
And if a reunification in Taiwan happens in 2030.
I will wait for the world to sanction China and Hong Kong so the property market will collapse aboud 60% to 70% so I can grab a few . Because I am leaving some cash in Hong Kong and moving 80
% of what I have back to Singapore.
Thanks for the response.
While I can find some common ground on being anti US government. In particular the lobbying arrangement, industrial complexes eg. healthcare, military, prison system, the global interventionism; All of those constructs I detest.
I will pushback on the "anti west" comment. While I don't think Chinese people for example are "anti west" I do think the CCP, Russia's regime, Iranian regime and many of the middle eastern monarchies are very opposed to Western values.
Obviously it is not about right or wrong and there is value in accepting different views; I genuinely see the importance of personal freedom and liberty taking priority over the "collective goal" to coin a term. Something that I think is a pillar of western values. Yes I completely understand the flaws of the capitalist western system and its propensity to inequality. Yes I also think that democracy is flawed; I would still consider peaceful transfer of power via democracy as something valuable about western values.
I am not really informed enough to comment further on the Taiwan/China situation. I require more reading on the matter.
On the Ukraine/Russia situation. While I agree there are legitimate security concerns for Russia, I do not agree they are as existential as some would argue; I also do not accept those concerns warrant a full scale invasion of another country.
It is clear to me that there are secondary motives for Putin's invasion. I believe there are many; I believe that one vector relates to the "Arab spring" events and also the second Iraq war. I don't think it is a coincidence that after those events Putins position on Ukraine changed. Authoritarian regimes were deposed by popular revolt and also by the US and coalition forces forcibly removing Saddams regime.
Those events, in my opinion played an important process in changing Putin's outlook on Ukraine; I think it led him to believe that his own position as the poster boy of authoritarianism was not as secure as he initially believed.
This idea is only one of a variety of factors that I believe led Russia to invade Ukraine but it appears to often be overlooked.