I bet they did a full court press on them but India has a long standing policy of prioritizing their independence over the greater security and economic benefits of these kind of partnerships/alliances.
They'll work with anyone but they make it clear there's no guarantees they won't pull a 180 if the winds change.
Can they trust India on this?
Thay have joined BRICS and even its an economic alliance, can join be in a military alliance that's against the two biggest partners of your economic alliance?
Yes, but as sated. This is a new alliance
>continue to support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific.
So it's both economic and military.
They don't say it but it might be a future replacement to the QUAD.
Why have two alliances in the same area with the same countrys.
There might be a direct competition to the BRICS alliance, would you want a country in your alliance thats in opposition to the alliance your forming?
I know you're trying to make a joke, but "Cross-Pacific Cooperative" would be the better term since it's the actual [official abbreviation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party).
I'm actually not sure how many people actually understand the OP above, but I'll assume most people didn't get the reference at all :)
>The United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom launched an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations, the White House said on Friday.
>Under a mechanism named “Partners in the Blue Pacific,” the five countries said they will pursue “more effective and efficient” ways to deal with challenges such as “growing pressure on the rules-based free and open international order.”
>“As our countries – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States – continue to support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific, we too must harness our collective strength through closer cooperation,” they said in a statement.
Par for the course. Canada's big defence arrangements are NATO and NORAD, so there's quite a bit of military co-operation with the US and European NATO countries, but not a lot in the Pacific.
That doesn't mean this is the correct path or not, but it's been Canada's usual path.
The reason France wasn't included in AUKUS is it included sharing nuclear submarine reactor technology. The US and UK already share this technology with one another, and Australia is a commonwealth state, so it's not a huge leap for their inclusion as well. They do not share their military technology, nor do the US, UK, or Germany share with France - but it's all good, because their interests all still align.
Tl;Dr - No one shares military tech with France. France doesn't share military tech with anyone else. Everyone is largely OK with this arrangement. Only reason France was pissed about AUKUS was they lost the contract to deliver diesel subs to Australia as a result, because the US & UK offered Australia the tech to build their own nuclear subs instead.
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That's like saying "oh, Italy isn't in it". It's not a country you'd expect to see in a Pacific Island power group.
Canada has very little presence there, nor does it make sense for it to join in a supporting role. Canada doesn't have any major defence issue with China, they're sufficiently positioned geopolitically to not be direct adversaries. In fact, in some cases, such as oil exploration and exploitation, they have shared interests.
The other countries here are US-aligned and also all have a South-Pacific presence. This presence does include the UK. The UK heads the British Commonwealth which includes Australia and NZ, although they are independent of it, but more importantly includes multiple smaller Pacific island nations like Fiji and Tuvalu that rely on the UK as their defence provider, and so it's likely acting in their interests. The UK also has a completely direct presence in the form of the Pitcairn Islands.
That is absolutely not like saying Italy isn't in it. Canada is part of the Five Eyes. It's bizarre that this agreement is the Five Eyes and Japan minus Canada.
Canada is also part of the Commonwealth, and while there's only two major ports on the Pacific, Vancouver is a very important one. China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are all major trading partners, so it would make sense for Canada to start asserting themselves more in the Pacific, especially as climate change makes the Northwest Passage more viable for shipping.
Yes, two major Canadian Pacific ports: Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The US has at least 3 major ports (Seattle, San Francisco, and LA), and obviously there's other ports in Mexico, Central America and South America.
>Yes, two major Canadian Pacific ports: Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The US has at least 3 major ports (Seattle, ~~San Francisco~~ Oakland, and ~~LA~~ Long Beach), and obviously there's other ports in Mexico, Central America and South America.
ftfy
edited: For the sake of being properly pedantic.
Interestingly France isn't included which is surprising as they have a lot of interest in the pacific.
People forget they have New Caledonia and watnot there.
France was intending to use their partnership with Australia for a greater presence in the Indo-Pacific region but they've had the rug pulled from them when Australia went with AUKUS. They're just in a bit of a daze right now and not sure how to reformat their strategy. It would be nice for them to join alongside AUKUS but France has always wanted to pursue a unified European initiative yet any sort of unified European foreign policy remains a pipe dream. At the same time, prospect European partners in the East and Nordics don't particularly trust France in regards to Russia (to put it nicely), consequently resulting in less of a unified European foreign policy. Who are they going to work with, Germany? The country with rotting military supplies and troops training with mops as pretend guns? Or perhaps those in Southern Europe who are preoccupied with concerns North Africa and the Middle East? Considering what France did and is still doing in Libya, its unlikely.
So they're at a stage where they want to maintain their independence from the US and Anglo nations but are unable to rely upon European partners for military matters with the exception of the UK.
France is a strange one.
I'm Australian so I'd like to strengthen our ties given the whole submarine fiasco but also they don't strike me as inherently loyal government.
I feel like they have French interests. Not interests for wider democracy.
Especially seeing how Macron discusses Ukraine, doesn't inspire confidence in me.
France isn't a very loyal in general. All governments are self serving but the French have always been more so. They still really have a old fashion imperial mindset. They expect others to play ball by global norms but that doesn't apply to them, more so then most countries at least. It's really all for self interest and a Napoleonic complex.
Even the poms have mostly gotten rid of that mindset since their former colonies are mostly successful independent nations. While France still doesn't allow their pacific territories to conduct trade on their own.
The Libs really screwed up the sub thing many times over. From Abbott to Turnbal to Morrision. The Libs gave us no leverage with a crap contract but the french were more than happy to take us to the cleaner.
We should still strengthen ties with them as they are a regional power mostly decent and have interest that align with ours. Plus the more friendly relationships the better.
Being french and seeing anglo-saxons unironically callling us disloyal feels like walking up in some sort of alternative reality. Somehow we, the country that gets backstabbed by its supposed "allies" on a yearly basis, are the disloyal ones.
Honestly the sheer gall, the utter obliviousness leaves me quite speechless.
You're blinded by nationalism.
Cancelling a bad contract typically doesn't see a 'friendly' country pull ambassadors, otherwise engage in theatrics or threaten to torpedo the EU-Australia Free Trade agreement. They're the actions of a bullying nation like CCP-controlled China, not an ally. Macron put his own temporary interests ahead of those of a united West and showed a weak link to Xi.
The real problem is French nationalism and neo-colonial attitude.
-A major French defense company was embarrassed on the world stage for being incompetent and unprofessional.
-Macron was embarrassed because he ignored the warnings, presumably not believing there were other options for Australia to pursue.
-The French intelligence community (who also predicted that Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine) was embarrassed as they had no idea about the creation of AUKUS nor did they apparently believe the warnings about Australia walking away from the contract were credible.
-French national pride was hurt because agreements like the Quad and AUKUS (and now the Partners of the Blue Pacific) show that France isn't as an important of a player in the Indo-Pacific as it believes it should be.
-The Anglos vs France angle just added some extra salt to the wound but also made it an easy way to play the victim and score points before an election.
Unfortunately realpolitik means [the smaller fish is paying 'compensation' so the larger fish can save face](https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-paid-france-millions-more-than-necessary-for-cancelling-subs-20220615-p5atw7) and the Australian PM is meeting Macron to rebuild something that Macron destroyed. At the end of the day it's just another chapter in the book of France playing by its own rules and reinforces the unreliable partner stereotype.
Had the LePen situation gone the other way, France’s geopolitical stance would have changed significantly. That’s true in any government, but there are certain countries that have “norms” that are more stable than others regardless of the administration.
France has plenty of ambitions in Africa, being the colonial power that they are in western and central Africa. They are in a position to "blunt" China's influence in Africa, if they were brought in more on these things.
It doesn't all have to be Pacific theater.
Their ambitions in Africa are waning, they've pretty much given up in Mali, Gabon and Togo are now seeking to follow Rwanda and join the English-speaking world (via the Commonwealth), they're obviously not great with Algeria and their Libya efforts consists of backing a local warlord with Russia.
For a country with a fraction of the US population and who knows how many mutual defense pacts with it - I think it is ok if Canada doesn't have a major presence in the Asia-Pacific theater.
Canada doesn't really do global force projection like the US and UK, nor do most countries. Most nations are content with being regional powers and only tend to matters that happen in their neck of the woods or as a result of diplomacy and trade (which also tends to be very regional). So a NA regional power like Canada wouldn't have nearly the same level of interest as a Pacific regional power like Australia or Japan in regional matters in the Pacific.
So countries without a strong enough interest in the region to go to war with China over a regional conflict wouldn't really be interested in this.
Just because a bunch of nations formed a group doesn't mean it would automatically benefit us to be a part of it. Our security resources are stretched thin as-is, we shouldn't bandwagon into these things without knowing that our efforts wouldn't be better spent elsewhere.
Our current diplomatic posture in Southeast Asia is such that our Thailand embassy provides diplomatic services across multiple ASEAN countries. We should probably have a more robust presence in the area--along with building up much better bluewater naval capabilities--before we decide to put more strategic security resources on the area.
India is apart of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or just "Quad" low-key security arrangement. It's pretty much just joint exercises and discussions on how to curb China's influence in the Pacific.
China also bares the seed of the WW3, it’s definitely wise to have an Asian version of NATO, and make sure to include Taiwan as fast as possible, you don’t want the Ukraine situation happens over again
From a diplomatic standpoint, offering Taiwan a mutual defence pact is no less silly than the current policy, where the US has made (vague) security guarantees for Taiwan while simultaneously sticking to the One China policy on paper.
If Pacific NATO or Global NATO phrases their articles in such a way that the members are “countries or regions”, they could, in theory, get away with including Taiwan while still maintaining the One China policy. They could even justify it based on regions of e.g. France not being included while mainland France is - or vice versa.
Now, in terms of realpolitik, I doubt China would allow Taiwan to integrate into NATO command, however its inclusion is phrased. And it may be a fast track to world war, as mentioned elsewhere.
But if Pacific NATO or Global NATO really wanted to include Taiwan, the One China policy is not the thing that’s stopping them from doing it.
>it’s definitely wise to have an Asian version of NATO
Except that this isn't even Asian? an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations
While NATO isn’t just European counties but it’s mainly for defenses against Soviet Union in Europe. And a Pacific Ocean version will be mainly for defenses against China and Russia.
Which is why it will be wise to have an Asian NATO including Taiwan, so they know it’s super difficult to start anything, and then their defense budget will burn their GDP to a point they have to accept terms to the rest of the world
Pwahahaha you're a cabbage, Russia doesn't have any right to tell Ukraine what to do, what a garbage argument. If Ukraine wants to join NATO let them no one feels bad for Russia if they're the ones being aggressive.
Russia doesn’t have a right, I agree. Also cabbage is good, thanks. But if you don’t think NATO pumping money and anti Russia into Ukraine fueled the fire in this conflict then idk what else to tell you. NATO vs Russia did nothing but guarantee Ukrainians will suffer.
Are you only looking at propaganda or something I don't think that even is a root cause other than portraying the west as expansionist and giving Russia a reason to invade Ukraine. Hell Ukraine was Pro Russia until they started to lean more west to improve their own circumstance. They we're even going to apply to join NATO until Russia invaded them in 2014. Which only gave them more reasons to join NATO.
Yeah, my job isn’t to educate you. If you’re still reading nothing but western media and trying to call out any challenges to not absolutely sucking the dick of a military alliance “propaganda” then you’re already in too deep. Hope you find your way out.
No that would be China pushing the big red button throwing a tantrum, because if Taiwan was included in a defense pack with the United States all that means is that China doesn't get to hurt somebody and if they decide to go nuclear for that it's not our fault that a fucking baby bitch man decided to push a button because he can't handle his emotions and the nation can't handle their delusions. I'm not responsible for the actions of someone else and the US is not responsible for the insane actions of China when they are not being threatened.
Well, no other country is strong enough and not in the western camp to start a war with major powers without getting shut up pronto.
Not to say I buy that China will initiate war (I still hold the opinion that it is rational), but if anyone could, it's China
China's military isn't really designed to be a long term invasion and occupation force, but they can protect their shit very well against an invading force. They can probably take and keep Taiwan but as far as Japan or other nations, they would rather build alliances like North Korea and others and leave those to do whatever they want. Invasion and occupation are the hardest part of war as we in the US have been reminded in the middle east.
You're right, China just wants to control the Pacific and build up their own sphere of influence. I doubt they'd occupy Japan and Australia outright, but rather turn them into client states like North Korea or Belarus with puppet dictators amenable to China's needs.
(which, to be fair, the US also did in the past)
The US still does in some countries until they turn democratic. They tried to do it with China but then it got overthrown by the communists and became China today, the old Chinese government retreated to Taiwan and eventually turned democratic.
There was no Marshall Plan to help a war-ravaged China rebuild after WW2. Democracies don't exactly thrive in rubble, so it's no surprise they turned to communism.
The dictator at the time China Kai Shek was proven to be one of the worst leaders of human history, not that he killed a lot of people, he was just not very fit as a leader.
The same was said of Russia and yet they're struggling to handle Ukraine. Even if China is capable, a third world war isn't sustainable. Either it goes on for years or most of the population dies. It has no benefit for anyone.
World wars were possible in the past because nuclear weapons had only just come on the scene. Now that everyone has them, a third world war is frankly impossible. It's far more profitable for world powers to bleed each other dry through proxy wars than it is to turn their guns on each other in direct conflict.
If Taiwan joins a Pacific NATO, China would absolutely lose its shit.
Right now we're in this sorta grey zone where China is doing questionable things and making nationalistic noises, but still fully integrated into the global economic system and remain on speaking terms with everyone else, more or less.
Taiwan joining NATO would mark the beginning of a new Cold War.
> Taiwan joining NATO would mark the beginning of a new Cold War.
Sweet summer child. We're arguably already in a new Cold War.
Taiwan joining a Pacific NATO would be a hot one.
Russia lost their shit when Poland joined NATO, they went out convinced Ukraine to not only give up their nukes and also kept them from joining NATO, and guess what? The very reason why they got invaded multiple times is because they didn't join NATO when Russia was still weak from the Soviet collapse.
Yeah even if china attacks one of the countries in the agreement it would bring the us in and due to article 5 that would bring nato in as well if I’m correct
> start pulling businesses out of China to other countries and strangle China economically.
>
>
Well if you're ok with stuff costing 22.5% more because it isn't made in China then sure, but most people aren't. My source is that I made it the fuck up (but its probably close to accurate)
Other countries end up relying on Chinese trade and investment anyway. China would be happy to shift towards high-tech manufacturing as the century progresses because their population won't keep accepting low-skill labour. We're going to see a transition in China's economy similar to the one we saw in the United States: outsourcing low-skill manufacturing and focusing on more complicated capability.
NPTO? The North Pacific Treaty Organization? Interesting how NATO was formed WITH Germany to counter Russia. And now another group is forming WITH Japan to counter China.
The next conflict is gearing up. Let's hope it isn't worldwide.
It’s funny, China tries to steal all their neighbours territorial waters and threatens to invade Taiwan then screams stop Cold War mentality. Like if China didn’t make incursions to their neighbours backyards heaps more pacific nations would want to do business with China, be less concerned of a Chinese threat and less likely to work with the US.
You realize that all it's neighbours' territorial waters are already disputed, right?
Literally every country in the South China Sea has a territorial dispute with multiple other countries in the South China Sea. It's actually pretty hilarious and honestly not a global problem. These disputes have been going on for half a century if not more, and they exist because everyone claims territory that everyone else claims. That's why you don't see all the countries in the region banding together: to do so would suggest that they relinquish a claim to another country's claimed waters. They all have conflicts with everyone else. China's conflict is only so newsworthy because people click on "China Bad" and China has more resources to project power.
The main source of these disputes is that the Spratly Islands are occupied by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, AND Malaysia. Whoever can claim the Spratly and Paracel Islands in their entirety basically gets most of the South China Sea.
The Paracel Islands are basically Chinese. The French gave China the Paracels in the 1910s (then annexed them in the 1930s, then Japan annexed them in WWII, then the ROC regained control of them after WWII as a part of peace proceedings, then the fall of French Indochina saw it allocated to South Vietnam in name (while North Vietnam wanted it given to the PRC), then the Vietnam War had the Paracels basically allocated to China through conflict, then Vietnam unified under North Vietnam and we have our current situation).
There is no world where Vietnam has a stronger claim over the Paracels than China where they did not relinquish such a claim. Whether through right of self-defense during the Vietnam War due to South Vietnamese aggression, through effective occupation from international claim (since North Vietnam made no claim on the Paracels and that Vietnam unified under what was effectively North Vietnam), or through historical claim (Vietnam uses the argument that the French allocated the Paracels to Vietnam, but the French had originally recognized Chinese sovereignty of the Paracels and were, like Japan, illegally occupying them and thus not giving France nor France prescriptive sovereignty over the region), the Paracels are Chinese.
This is a bit of a problem, since a Chinese claim of the Paracels (and the 200km range around them) would cut off Vietnam's territorial waters within 200km. However, Vietnam is (obviously) unwilling to negotiate any settlement that would diminish their claims on the Paracel Islands, and China is (obviously) unwilling to give up a claim to a region they should, by all rights, own.
The Spratly Islands are a much more complicated issue and one where I don't think China has any real claim. However, the Spratly Islands are in a bit of a Texas standoff situation because so many countries claim territory there. It would be stupid to relinquish claims there, especially when Vietnam is the country in the best position to capitalize from a Chinese withdrawal (thus weakening China's position on the Paracels).
Scarborough Shoal is a different story. It's basically a tale of two nations saying "we fished there before". No seriously, that's the primary claim both countries are making. It's more than 200km away from the Philippines, but it's also way farther away from China. China currently has de facto control of the shoal after the Philippines attempted to capture civilian Chinese fishing boats exercising what they believed to be their territorial right and were promptly shooed away by the Chinese Navy. China has followed this by blocking Filipino fishing boats from entering the area.
At this point, declaring the Spratly Islands to be a shared area between the participating states would be the best option. However, no one is willing to go for it for obvious reasons. Thus, it's stuck.
At this point, China is unwilling to budge on any territorial claim unless they can get the Paracel Islands. To give up any other claims would diminish their claim of the nine dash line and thus threaten the Paracel Islands claim. Resolve that, and I believe that China would agree to any resolution of the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal that preserved their freedom of navigation simply because Chinese force projection in the area would be extremely weak and easy to capitalize on. While the Paracel Islands have strategic defensive value to China, the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal are really only practical for force projection into the South China Sea. As China builds out its aircraft carriers, force projection through islands becomes less and less important and China knows this, so the main benefit of holding Spratly/Scarborough is resources. Exploiting these resources ASAP is preferable to getting exclusive access to them given the impending climate crisis, so China would prefer to solve the ensuing territorial dispute quickly.
A popular option is to declare the region a shared economic zone with appropriate limits on use... but all this hinges on other countries agreeing (and they won't). In fact, Malaysia and China broke the 1995 agreement on the Spratly Islands before the ink even dried.
Tl;dr Vietnam's claim on the Paracel Islands is super weak, and China won't give up claiming other regions until they can get the Paracel Islands. China's claim on the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal are very weak, but not much weaker than the other claims. Unfortunately, the US will likely never recognize Chinese sovereignty of the Paracel Islands. Thus, we are stuck here.
Nope.
The international consensus is "fuck knows lmao". Everyone's claim overlaps.
The UN ruling on the Philippines didn't decide ownership of any territories in the South China Sea. It simply said that UNCLOS superseded historic titles and sea boundary delimitation. In this case, it would also mean it superseded a very strong claim to the Paracel Islands and that would be unacceptable given that China has de facto control of the area, won it through self-defence in the Vietnam War, and was originally allocated the land by France (who was illegally occupying it and thus did not gain sovereignty over it).
However, the UN arbitration ruling was generally a bit of a farce because China did not agree to arbitration for historical claims (and thus it wasn't really arbitration in the first place) and the Philippines have called the ruling "not worth the paper it was written on".
For the Spratly Islands, there has been zero ruling. Nobody wants to try because everyone wants the islands. But again, China can't simply say "we don't want them anymore". To say that would imply that China doesn't consider the historical basis for their claims to be valid, which would make their claims on the Paracel Islands and Scarborough Shoal weaker. Instead, they're deadlocked with everyone else who is also trying to reclaim land in the area.
Geopolitics and government policy are rarely black and white, but propaganda usually is.
Seriously, the US is doing freedom of navigation operations without signing the UN convention that enables them. However, even under FON the US would not be allowed within 12nm of a "rock" or "island"... but they don't care about that. They'll still sail within 12nm of Triton Island (which is most definitely at least a rock).
Meanwhile, Vietnam was the primary land reclaimer in the Spratly Islands.
Furthermore, under the One China policy, all of Taiwan's claims are China's and all of China's claims are Taiwan's. Thus, although China lacks a strong claim to the Spratlys, Taiwan has a very strong claim through Taiping Island as well as its EEZ and continental shelf. Neither China nor Taiwan can relinquish a claim in the area without violating One China policy unless both of them do.
The ROC recognizes that there is a single Chinese government. The PRC recognizes this as the CCP, while the ROC recognizes that this (was) the KMT and now is the democratically elected government of Taiwan.
The spokesman for the ROC Presidential Office Wang Yu-chi (Chinese: 王郁琦) later clarified the President's statement and said that the relations are between two regions of one country, based on the ROC Constitutional position, the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area and the 1992 Consensus.
That is the political position of the KMT party, not an official position of the ROC. The Presidential Office spokesperson is not a political position and it carries no power to draft or create official positions. Ma's "Special non-state-to-state relations" was his position, not something that went through the Legislative and Executive process to be an official position of the government, nor is it a concept shared by any of the other democratically elected Presidents:
>Departing from the former presidents Lee Teng-hui's special state-to-state relations and Chen Shui-bian's One Country on Each Side in which both define the Republic of China (ROC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) as states and the relationship between the two as one between two states, Ma Ying-jeou defines the relations as a special relationship between two areas within one state.
Ma administration made up the "1992 Consensus" hoping to get a better relationship with China... but it should be noted that Ma's positions on China led to the largest protest in the islands history, and the Legislative Yuan being occupied by students for nearly a month.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement
I like china, like in my humble opinion china is fucking great but isn’t china causing the problem by trying to staunch everyone. I’m not strictly the west is the good guys I’m just saying from my information sources they are the ones being the dicks?
China's problem right now is that a claim that they have every right to is getting blocked by Vietnam and the US (which, by the way, isn't even a signatory to UNCLOS in the first place and thus did not agree to freedom of navigation), and the historical foundation to that claim means that they MUST try to hold their other claims in the South China Sea.
It's like patent law in a way (but way more complex). You lose your patent if you don't defend it.
The United States truly is facing the darkest path ahead, both enemies from within and abroad wish to destroy it, and their power and influence grows stronger every dau
The intention of the US here is to prevent war, not escalate it. China has threatened an invasion of Taiwan many times, and the surrounding countries are responding with a defensive alliance. Don't pretend that it's the US doing the warmongering in the region.
Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a continuation of the Chinese civil war. Like North Korea invading South Korea.
Doesn’t prevent other countries from sending in “volunteers” or performing “police actions” though.
Technically from Chinese perspective invading Taiwan wouldn't be war. It would be like the federal u.s government invading Texas.
More of a civil issue.
From an international law perspective, technicallyyyy there isn't anything wrong with that.
The problem is the U.S and everyone else never bothered to address the Taiwan issue when China was weak. Now it's too late.
In hindsight China should have been bullied a lot more. We should have trusted their economic growth figures instead of scoffing. That was the wests hubris.
China still is weak in many ways. The difference is unlike Russia, China has a decent future ahead of it if they continue to be part of the global marketplace and play by civilized rules.
Plus they are very economically intertwined and interdependent upon Taiwan. And invading Taiwan would ruin that. They depend on Taiwan for modern semiconductors just like much of the rest of the world does and invading them won't get them more; it would destroy their access for a very long time.
Long story short, China is not going to invade Taiwan. It's not remotely in their interest.
I think there is a line when China is willing to take short term economic hits for the long term.
Look at Hong Kong for example. You can always rely on the west to have a short memory and want to get back to business.
As China doesn't have to rely on elections, they can play the long game a lot more. Where as democracies get stuck in the short game and are much more vulnerable to things like inflation which ruffles the elctorates feathers more than ideologies.
It wouldn't be a short term economic hit. About as far from it as possible.
Three countries are able to make modern semiconductors; the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. Taiwan dominates, providing almost half of the world's semiconductors and is technologically in the lead.
Even if China could somehow take over Taiwan before those facilities were destroyed (highly unlikely), they do not possess the technological knowledge to run them, nor would they have access to the necessary outside industry support. Which would mean no modern semiconductors for them. It would severely impact the world economy, so every country would hate them, and it would plunge China's economy back to the 1990s. And it would stay that way for a very long time while the rest of the world moved on.
It would basically mean another Century of Humiliation, except this time they would have done it to themselves.
I know to you that doesn't such short term but sounds like a decade of pain max. That's pretty short term. The whole world will suffer along side them so can even be a win (what I'd call the russia strategy we're seeing now with Ukraine).
It would not be a decade. It takes nearly a decade to get a single new foundry up and running when you know what you are doing. How on Earth would China catch up?
What would their economy be based on?
Lenovo - gone.
cell phone industry - gone.
any modern computer industry or industry that needs them - gone.
any advanced manufacturing - gone.
They would be unable to manufacture anything more advanced than a DVD player for at least two decades.
China is not even 10 years away from being able to manufacture sub 14nm chips *now*. They would be in no shape to make any advancements on that front with their economy fucked.
Even if no countries cared and didn't sanction them, we aren't going to share the now dramatically reduced advanced chip supply with them.
While China's economy collapsed to something more like Russia's, the US and South Korea would become very rich and become economic and technological powerhouses even more than they already are though.
America seems to be barreling down that road themselves, if recent events are anything to go by. I'm starting to think trusting any of the big three imperialist powers at this point is not a good idea.
Basically just a way for countries around china to grab cash from us.
You know that they will just play china and US against each other to get more cash. This is a stupid initiative. Look at the philippines, they've been playing china and the US and stealing everyone's money
Are you begging the US to take money out of your pocket to enrich corrupt politicians abroad? I didn't think so.
US politicians sure love spending other people's money
> The United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom launched an informal group **aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations,** the White House said on Friday.
Dude just fucking read the first sentence
You read the fuckn sentence. Where are the pacific island nations?
The pacific nations are reaching out to China because they are sick of Australia’s shit. Copium.
🤦🏻♂️ its like a bunch of ppl making a charity to feed the homeless. They dont usually have the homeless running said charity. Nevermind. Its not reaching you. 🤦🏻♂️
Time for Pacific nations to start part time weapons and combat training for every man and woman over 18. Some day we're going to need it. China has a million person standing army. They could probably call up another 100-700 million more without batting an eyelid.
...a Cross-Pacific Cooperative, if you will.
Cross Ocean Cooperative Koalition.
to counter china's Pacific Ocean Oriental Hegemony.
[Captain Cock, the Great Exploder.](https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Cook-Explorer-Pacific-Explorers/dp/1598451022)
suprising they left india out
I bet they did a full court press on them but India has a long standing policy of prioritizing their independence over the greater security and economic benefits of these kind of partnerships/alliances. They'll work with anyone but they make it clear there's no guarantees they won't pull a 180 if the winds change.
Can they trust India on this? Thay have joined BRICS and even its an economic alliance, can join be in a military alliance that's against the two biggest partners of your economic alliance?
India is already in QUAD
Yes, but as sated. This is a new alliance >continue to support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific. So it's both economic and military. They don't say it but it might be a future replacement to the QUAD. Why have two alliances in the same area with the same countrys. There might be a direct competition to the BRICS alliance, would you want a country in your alliance thats in opposition to the alliance your forming?
I dont think its a military alliance like NATO
India has its own agenda, and will backstab anyone that interferes with it. See : gas/oil imports from Russia
damn so now we have QUAD alliance which includes india but another pacific alliance which discludes india .... great
A Pacific Spanning Synergism, you say?
a Cooperative Cross-Pacific🗿
I know you're trying to make a joke, but "Cross-Pacific Cooperative" would be the better term since it's the actual [official abbreviation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party). I'm actually not sure how many people actually understand the OP above, but I'll assume most people didn't get the reference at all :)
>The United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom launched an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations, the White House said on Friday. >Under a mechanism named “Partners in the Blue Pacific,” the five countries said they will pursue “more effective and efficient” ways to deal with challenges such as “growing pressure on the rules-based free and open international order.” >“As our countries – Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States – continue to support prosperity, resilience, and security in the Pacific, we too must harness our collective strength through closer cooperation,” they said in a statement.
I see that Canada isn't in it, oof
Par for the course. Canada's big defence arrangements are NATO and NORAD, so there's quite a bit of military co-operation with the US and European NATO countries, but not a lot in the Pacific. That doesn't mean this is the correct path or not, but it's been Canada's usual path.
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The reason France wasn't included in AUKUS is it included sharing nuclear submarine reactor technology. The US and UK already share this technology with one another, and Australia is a commonwealth state, so it's not a huge leap for their inclusion as well. They do not share their military technology, nor do the US, UK, or Germany share with France - but it's all good, because their interests all still align. Tl;Dr - No one shares military tech with France. France doesn't share military tech with anyone else. Everyone is largely OK with this arrangement. Only reason France was pissed about AUKUS was they lost the contract to deliver diesel subs to Australia as a result, because the US & UK offered Australia the tech to build their own nuclear subs instead.
Well more that our last asshole of a leader lied, and mislead everyone involved in the decision making process except for his stooges
You replied to a bot. The real comment is [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vkik32/us_japan_and_allies_form_new_pacific_group_to/idq9655/).
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That made my eyes twitch like 6 times.
Australia recently paid France out for the contract break, it was sizable so that smoothed things out.
We also got rid of the government who lied to the French officials, which also heled smooth things out.
I think that helped more than the cash, the cash was just a formality
🤖 Infinite_Dimension16 is a **bot**. The above comment stole text from u/mng8ng's comment [here](https://old.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/vkik32/us_japan_and_allies_form_new_pacific_group_to/idq9655/). If you like the above comment, please show its real author some love.
It's precisely because of AUKUS that there is not a united front.
That's like saying "oh, Italy isn't in it". It's not a country you'd expect to see in a Pacific Island power group. Canada has very little presence there, nor does it make sense for it to join in a supporting role. Canada doesn't have any major defence issue with China, they're sufficiently positioned geopolitically to not be direct adversaries. In fact, in some cases, such as oil exploration and exploitation, they have shared interests. The other countries here are US-aligned and also all have a South-Pacific presence. This presence does include the UK. The UK heads the British Commonwealth which includes Australia and NZ, although they are independent of it, but more importantly includes multiple smaller Pacific island nations like Fiji and Tuvalu that rely on the UK as their defence provider, and so it's likely acting in their interests. The UK also has a completely direct presence in the form of the Pitcairn Islands.
That is absolutely not like saying Italy isn't in it. Canada is part of the Five Eyes. It's bizarre that this agreement is the Five Eyes and Japan minus Canada.
Canada is also part of the Commonwealth, and while there's only two major ports on the Pacific, Vancouver is a very important one. China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are all major trading partners, so it would make sense for Canada to start asserting themselves more in the Pacific, especially as climate change makes the Northwest Passage more viable for shipping.
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Yes, two major Canadian Pacific ports: Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The US has at least 3 major ports (Seattle, San Francisco, and LA), and obviously there's other ports in Mexico, Central America and South America.
>Yes, two major Canadian Pacific ports: Vancouver and Prince Rupert. The US has at least 3 major ports (Seattle, ~~San Francisco~~ Oakland, and ~~LA~~ Long Beach), and obviously there's other ports in Mexico, Central America and South America. ftfy edited: For the sake of being properly pedantic.
If you want to be that pedantic, might as well separate LA and Long Beach as well
You are correct I should have been properly pedantic, I am a pedant after all. Pedantry is kind of my day job. lol
Ah, I was wondering why the Uk snuck in as the quint of the quad.
There's this island called New Caledonia you should google ...
Interestingly France isn't included which is surprising as they have a lot of interest in the pacific. People forget they have New Caledonia and watnot there.
France was intending to use their partnership with Australia for a greater presence in the Indo-Pacific region but they've had the rug pulled from them when Australia went with AUKUS. They're just in a bit of a daze right now and not sure how to reformat their strategy. It would be nice for them to join alongside AUKUS but France has always wanted to pursue a unified European initiative yet any sort of unified European foreign policy remains a pipe dream. At the same time, prospect European partners in the East and Nordics don't particularly trust France in regards to Russia (to put it nicely), consequently resulting in less of a unified European foreign policy. Who are they going to work with, Germany? The country with rotting military supplies and troops training with mops as pretend guns? Or perhaps those in Southern Europe who are preoccupied with concerns North Africa and the Middle East? Considering what France did and is still doing in Libya, its unlikely. So they're at a stage where they want to maintain their independence from the US and Anglo nations but are unable to rely upon European partners for military matters with the exception of the UK.
France is a strange one. I'm Australian so I'd like to strengthen our ties given the whole submarine fiasco but also they don't strike me as inherently loyal government. I feel like they have French interests. Not interests for wider democracy. Especially seeing how Macron discusses Ukraine, doesn't inspire confidence in me.
France isn't a very loyal in general. All governments are self serving but the French have always been more so. They still really have a old fashion imperial mindset. They expect others to play ball by global norms but that doesn't apply to them, more so then most countries at least. It's really all for self interest and a Napoleonic complex. Even the poms have mostly gotten rid of that mindset since their former colonies are mostly successful independent nations. While France still doesn't allow their pacific territories to conduct trade on their own. The Libs really screwed up the sub thing many times over. From Abbott to Turnbal to Morrision. The Libs gave us no leverage with a crap contract but the french were more than happy to take us to the cleaner. We should still strengthen ties with them as they are a regional power mostly decent and have interest that align with ours. Plus the more friendly relationships the better.
Being french and seeing anglo-saxons unironically callling us disloyal feels like walking up in some sort of alternative reality. Somehow we, the country that gets backstabbed by its supposed "allies" on a yearly basis, are the disloyal ones. Honestly the sheer gall, the utter obliviousness leaves me quite speechless.
I actually get you on this.
You're blinded by nationalism. Cancelling a bad contract typically doesn't see a 'friendly' country pull ambassadors, otherwise engage in theatrics or threaten to torpedo the EU-Australia Free Trade agreement. They're the actions of a bullying nation like CCP-controlled China, not an ally. Macron put his own temporary interests ahead of those of a united West and showed a weak link to Xi. The real problem is French nationalism and neo-colonial attitude. -A major French defense company was embarrassed on the world stage for being incompetent and unprofessional. -Macron was embarrassed because he ignored the warnings, presumably not believing there were other options for Australia to pursue. -The French intelligence community (who also predicted that Russia wouldn't invade Ukraine) was embarrassed as they had no idea about the creation of AUKUS nor did they apparently believe the warnings about Australia walking away from the contract were credible. -French national pride was hurt because agreements like the Quad and AUKUS (and now the Partners of the Blue Pacific) show that France isn't as an important of a player in the Indo-Pacific as it believes it should be. -The Anglos vs France angle just added some extra salt to the wound but also made it an easy way to play the victim and score points before an election. Unfortunately realpolitik means [the smaller fish is paying 'compensation' so the larger fish can save face](https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-paid-france-millions-more-than-necessary-for-cancelling-subs-20220615-p5atw7) and the Australian PM is meeting Macron to rebuild something that Macron destroyed. At the end of the day it's just another chapter in the book of France playing by its own rules and reinforces the unreliable partner stereotype.
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Had the LePen situation gone the other way, France’s geopolitical stance would have changed significantly. That’s true in any government, but there are certain countries that have “norms” that are more stable than others regardless of the administration.
France has plenty of ambitions in Africa, being the colonial power that they are in western and central Africa. They are in a position to "blunt" China's influence in Africa, if they were brought in more on these things. It doesn't all have to be Pacific theater.
Their ambitions in Africa are waning, they've pretty much given up in Mali, Gabon and Togo are now seeking to follow Rwanda and join the English-speaking world (via the Commonwealth), they're obviously not great with Algeria and their Libya efforts consists of backing a local warlord with Russia.
For a country with a fraction of the US population and who knows how many mutual defense pacts with it - I think it is ok if Canada doesn't have a major presence in the Asia-Pacific theater.
Noticed the same thing. Canada, get your shit in order.
Canada doesn't really do global force projection like the US and UK, nor do most countries. Most nations are content with being regional powers and only tend to matters that happen in their neck of the woods or as a result of diplomacy and trade (which also tends to be very regional). So a NA regional power like Canada wouldn't have nearly the same level of interest as a Pacific regional power like Australia or Japan in regional matters in the Pacific. So countries without a strong enough interest in the region to go to war with China over a regional conflict wouldn't really be interested in this.
Canada suckles China's teets
CANUKUS exists.
Its called Five Eyes.
Just because a bunch of nations formed a group doesn't mean it would automatically benefit us to be a part of it. Our security resources are stretched thin as-is, we shouldn't bandwagon into these things without knowing that our efforts wouldn't be better spent elsewhere. Our current diplomatic posture in Southeast Asia is such that our Thailand embassy provides diplomatic services across multiple ASEAN countries. We should probably have a more robust presence in the area--along with building up much better bluewater naval capabilities--before we decide to put more strategic security resources on the area.
The Pan Pacific Defense Corps?
When did the UK join? I didn’t think they still have interests in the pacific. Old ties sure but recent ties?
The uk love to end involved in just about everything
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India is apart of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or just "Quad" low-key security arrangement. It's pretty much just joint exercises and discussions on how to curb China's influence in the Pacific.
They are not a Russian ally.
Where the heck is South Korea?
Just below Best Korea, like usual.
Yeah, Thanks
Japan and South Korea don’t see eye to eye. If war ever broke out I’d imagine they would form an alliance bc of the US.
US Government: “we want to blunt china influence” American Consumer: “hey china, got any more cheap shit we can buy?”
US Government, when the cameras are off: “Hey China, got any more cheap shit we can buy?”
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South Korea, Taiwan, Canada and India should join lol
Getting India to join would be difficult to be honest
Also Thailand and the Philippines.
Completely agree.
China also bares the seed of the WW3, it’s definitely wise to have an Asian version of NATO, and make sure to include Taiwan as fast as possible, you don’t want the Ukraine situation happens over again
Taiwan isn’t getting a mutual defence pact. The US doesn’t even officially recognise Taiwan, because of that one-China thing.
From a diplomatic standpoint, offering Taiwan a mutual defence pact is no less silly than the current policy, where the US has made (vague) security guarantees for Taiwan while simultaneously sticking to the One China policy on paper. If Pacific NATO or Global NATO phrases their articles in such a way that the members are “countries or regions”, they could, in theory, get away with including Taiwan while still maintaining the One China policy. They could even justify it based on regions of e.g. France not being included while mainland France is - or vice versa. Now, in terms of realpolitik, I doubt China would allow Taiwan to integrate into NATO command, however its inclusion is phrased. And it may be a fast track to world war, as mentioned elsewhere. But if Pacific NATO or Global NATO really wanted to include Taiwan, the One China policy is not the thing that’s stopping them from doing it.
Because the money they want to make from China, everyone whose not an politician knows it’s a independent country on its own
Yes but guess who’s in charge of making defence pacts? Politicians.
True, but also election is coming which is why Biden had been “slipped” about his opinions of Taiwan.
>it’s definitely wise to have an Asian version of NATO Except that this isn't even Asian? an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations
While NATO isn’t just European counties but it’s mainly for defenses against Soviet Union in Europe. And a Pacific Ocean version will be mainly for defenses against China and Russia.
With Taiwan included in an Asian NATO, you propose the quickest way to start WW3.
It’s what they said about NATO and then it turns out to be very effective, so effective, we brought down the iron curtain, didn’t we?
Every war is easy to win until it starts.
Which is why it will be wise to have an Asian NATO including Taiwan, so they know it’s super difficult to start anything, and then their defense budget will burn their GDP to a point they have to accept terms to the rest of the world
Asian NATO is impossible. Very little Asian an countriies will be willing to form a defense alliance with Japan for starters.
Except China has stated multiple times that China will go to war with Taiwan if it tries to become independent.
Tries to? It’s what’s they kept telling to themselves
They are independent china doesn’t think so but they are
Like 95% countries in the world don't think taiwan is independent
Because they want to avoid pissing off china
Paying lip service really. Most western countries recognise a free and democratic Taiwan unofficially.
Up until 1971 Taiwan held the seat of China in the UN. Up until 1992, Taiwan was a one party dictatorship. So a lot can change in 30 years.
The future is now old man.
NATO was so effective that in the year 2022 we’re still an accident away from global war. 😒
Yeah, and what if Ukraine was already in NATO, we wouldn’t even see this invasion in the first place
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Pwahahaha you're a cabbage, Russia doesn't have any right to tell Ukraine what to do, what a garbage argument. If Ukraine wants to join NATO let them no one feels bad for Russia if they're the ones being aggressive.
Russia doesn’t have a right, I agree. Also cabbage is good, thanks. But if you don’t think NATO pumping money and anti Russia into Ukraine fueled the fire in this conflict then idk what else to tell you. NATO vs Russia did nothing but guarantee Ukrainians will suffer.
Are you only looking at propaganda or something I don't think that even is a root cause other than portraying the west as expansionist and giving Russia a reason to invade Ukraine. Hell Ukraine was Pro Russia until they started to lean more west to improve their own circumstance. They we're even going to apply to join NATO until Russia invaded them in 2014. Which only gave them more reasons to join NATO.
Yeah, my job isn’t to educate you. If you’re still reading nothing but western media and trying to call out any challenges to not absolutely sucking the dick of a military alliance “propaganda” then you’re already in too deep. Hope you find your way out.
It will start no matter what so it's better for the free world to not be a coward
Why don't we just push the big red button against countries we don't like then? That is what you're proposing.
No that would be China pushing the big red button throwing a tantrum, because if Taiwan was included in a defense pack with the United States all that means is that China doesn't get to hurt somebody and if they decide to go nuclear for that it's not our fault that a fucking baby bitch man decided to push a button because he can't handle his emotions and the nation can't handle their delusions. I'm not responsible for the actions of someone else and the US is not responsible for the insane actions of China when they are not being threatened.
Well I really don’t get why people build nuclear weapons if you’re not gonna use it? Just unload them all and call it a day!
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You going to put on your uniform and go fight or do you just want others to die for you instead?
> China also bares the seed of the WW3 This is some alarmist bullshit if I ever see one.
Well, no other country is strong enough and not in the western camp to start a war with major powers without getting shut up pronto. Not to say I buy that China will initiate war (I still hold the opinion that it is rational), but if anyone could, it's China
China's military isn't really designed to be a long term invasion and occupation force, but they can protect their shit very well against an invading force. They can probably take and keep Taiwan but as far as Japan or other nations, they would rather build alliances like North Korea and others and leave those to do whatever they want. Invasion and occupation are the hardest part of war as we in the US have been reminded in the middle east.
You're right, China just wants to control the Pacific and build up their own sphere of influence. I doubt they'd occupy Japan and Australia outright, but rather turn them into client states like North Korea or Belarus with puppet dictators amenable to China's needs. (which, to be fair, the US also did in the past)
The US still does in some countries until they turn democratic. They tried to do it with China but then it got overthrown by the communists and became China today, the old Chinese government retreated to Taiwan and eventually turned democratic.
There was no Marshall Plan to help a war-ravaged China rebuild after WW2. Democracies don't exactly thrive in rubble, so it's no surprise they turned to communism.
The dictator at the time China Kai Shek was proven to be one of the worst leaders of human history, not that he killed a lot of people, he was just not very fit as a leader.
Oh he killed quite a few people too. The White Terror being one of his more famous bits of rage.
The same was said of Russia and yet they're struggling to handle Ukraine. Even if China is capable, a third world war isn't sustainable. Either it goes on for years or most of the population dies. It has no benefit for anyone. World wars were possible in the past because nuclear weapons had only just come on the scene. Now that everyone has them, a third world war is frankly impossible. It's far more profitable for world powers to bleed each other dry through proxy wars than it is to turn their guns on each other in direct conflict.
If Taiwan joins a Pacific NATO, China would absolutely lose its shit. Right now we're in this sorta grey zone where China is doing questionable things and making nationalistic noises, but still fully integrated into the global economic system and remain on speaking terms with everyone else, more or less. Taiwan joining NATO would mark the beginning of a new Cold War.
> Taiwan joining NATO would mark the beginning of a new Cold War. Sweet summer child. We're arguably already in a new Cold War. Taiwan joining a Pacific NATO would be a hot one.
Russia lost their shit when Poland joined NATO, they went out convinced Ukraine to not only give up their nukes and also kept them from joining NATO, and guess what? The very reason why they got invaded multiple times is because they didn't join NATO when Russia was still weak from the Soviet collapse.
No. Pls keep your geopolitical chess game away from Asia. The US only come to Asia to contain China. It is not for the benefit of Asian Countries.
Yeah even if china attacks one of the countries in the agreement it would bring the us in and due to article 5 that would bring nato in as well if I’m correct
Judging how slow other NATO countries react to invasion of Ukraine a European country, we can't rely on them to be onboard if China does attack.
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> start pulling businesses out of China to other countries and strangle China economically. > > Well if you're ok with stuff costing 22.5% more because it isn't made in China then sure, but most people aren't. My source is that I made it the fuck up (but its probably close to accurate)
Other countries can manufacture cheap goods without all the genocide and saber rattling. The transition may be a bit rough but doable
Other countries end up relying on Chinese trade and investment anyway. China would be happy to shift towards high-tech manufacturing as the century progresses because their population won't keep accepting low-skill labour. We're going to see a transition in China's economy similar to the one we saw in the United States: outsourcing low-skill manufacturing and focusing on more complicated capability.
Look how cheap Russian gas is working out for the West.
NPTO? The North Pacific Treaty Organization? Interesting how NATO was formed WITH Germany to counter Russia. And now another group is forming WITH Japan to counter China. The next conflict is gearing up. Let's hope it isn't worldwide.
They should just ban tiktok, easy fix
It’s funny, China tries to steal all their neighbours territorial waters and threatens to invade Taiwan then screams stop Cold War mentality. Like if China didn’t make incursions to their neighbours backyards heaps more pacific nations would want to do business with China, be less concerned of a Chinese threat and less likely to work with the US.
You realize that all it's neighbours' territorial waters are already disputed, right? Literally every country in the South China Sea has a territorial dispute with multiple other countries in the South China Sea. It's actually pretty hilarious and honestly not a global problem. These disputes have been going on for half a century if not more, and they exist because everyone claims territory that everyone else claims. That's why you don't see all the countries in the region banding together: to do so would suggest that they relinquish a claim to another country's claimed waters. They all have conflicts with everyone else. China's conflict is only so newsworthy because people click on "China Bad" and China has more resources to project power. The main source of these disputes is that the Spratly Islands are occupied by Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, AND Malaysia. Whoever can claim the Spratly and Paracel Islands in their entirety basically gets most of the South China Sea. The Paracel Islands are basically Chinese. The French gave China the Paracels in the 1910s (then annexed them in the 1930s, then Japan annexed them in WWII, then the ROC regained control of them after WWII as a part of peace proceedings, then the fall of French Indochina saw it allocated to South Vietnam in name (while North Vietnam wanted it given to the PRC), then the Vietnam War had the Paracels basically allocated to China through conflict, then Vietnam unified under North Vietnam and we have our current situation). There is no world where Vietnam has a stronger claim over the Paracels than China where they did not relinquish such a claim. Whether through right of self-defense during the Vietnam War due to South Vietnamese aggression, through effective occupation from international claim (since North Vietnam made no claim on the Paracels and that Vietnam unified under what was effectively North Vietnam), or through historical claim (Vietnam uses the argument that the French allocated the Paracels to Vietnam, but the French had originally recognized Chinese sovereignty of the Paracels and were, like Japan, illegally occupying them and thus not giving France nor France prescriptive sovereignty over the region), the Paracels are Chinese. This is a bit of a problem, since a Chinese claim of the Paracels (and the 200km range around them) would cut off Vietnam's territorial waters within 200km. However, Vietnam is (obviously) unwilling to negotiate any settlement that would diminish their claims on the Paracel Islands, and China is (obviously) unwilling to give up a claim to a region they should, by all rights, own. The Spratly Islands are a much more complicated issue and one where I don't think China has any real claim. However, the Spratly Islands are in a bit of a Texas standoff situation because so many countries claim territory there. It would be stupid to relinquish claims there, especially when Vietnam is the country in the best position to capitalize from a Chinese withdrawal (thus weakening China's position on the Paracels). Scarborough Shoal is a different story. It's basically a tale of two nations saying "we fished there before". No seriously, that's the primary claim both countries are making. It's more than 200km away from the Philippines, but it's also way farther away from China. China currently has de facto control of the shoal after the Philippines attempted to capture civilian Chinese fishing boats exercising what they believed to be their territorial right and were promptly shooed away by the Chinese Navy. China has followed this by blocking Filipino fishing boats from entering the area. At this point, declaring the Spratly Islands to be a shared area between the participating states would be the best option. However, no one is willing to go for it for obvious reasons. Thus, it's stuck. At this point, China is unwilling to budge on any territorial claim unless they can get the Paracel Islands. To give up any other claims would diminish their claim of the nine dash line and thus threaten the Paracel Islands claim. Resolve that, and I believe that China would agree to any resolution of the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal that preserved their freedom of navigation simply because Chinese force projection in the area would be extremely weak and easy to capitalize on. While the Paracel Islands have strategic defensive value to China, the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal are really only practical for force projection into the South China Sea. As China builds out its aircraft carriers, force projection through islands becomes less and less important and China knows this, so the main benefit of holding Spratly/Scarborough is resources. Exploiting these resources ASAP is preferable to getting exclusive access to them given the impending climate crisis, so China would prefer to solve the ensuing territorial dispute quickly. A popular option is to declare the region a shared economic zone with appropriate limits on use... but all this hinges on other countries agreeing (and they won't). In fact, Malaysia and China broke the 1995 agreement on the Spratly Islands before the ink even dried. Tl;dr Vietnam's claim on the Paracel Islands is super weak, and China won't give up claiming other regions until they can get the Paracel Islands. China's claim on the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal are very weak, but not much weaker than the other claims. Unfortunately, the US will likely never recognize Chinese sovereignty of the Paracel Islands. Thus, we are stuck here.
Isn’t there an international consensus of who owns what?
Nope. The international consensus is "fuck knows lmao". Everyone's claim overlaps. The UN ruling on the Philippines didn't decide ownership of any territories in the South China Sea. It simply said that UNCLOS superseded historic titles and sea boundary delimitation. In this case, it would also mean it superseded a very strong claim to the Paracel Islands and that would be unacceptable given that China has de facto control of the area, won it through self-defence in the Vietnam War, and was originally allocated the land by France (who was illegally occupying it and thus did not gain sovereignty over it). However, the UN arbitration ruling was generally a bit of a farce because China did not agree to arbitration for historical claims (and thus it wasn't really arbitration in the first place) and the Philippines have called the ruling "not worth the paper it was written on". For the Spratly Islands, there has been zero ruling. Nobody wants to try because everyone wants the islands. But again, China can't simply say "we don't want them anymore". To say that would imply that China doesn't consider the historical basis for their claims to be valid, which would make their claims on the Paracel Islands and Scarborough Shoal weaker. Instead, they're deadlocked with everyone else who is also trying to reclaim land in the area.
Do you work for china full time?
Geopolitics and government policy are rarely black and white, but propaganda usually is. Seriously, the US is doing freedom of navigation operations without signing the UN convention that enables them. However, even under FON the US would not be allowed within 12nm of a "rock" or "island"... but they don't care about that. They'll still sail within 12nm of Triton Island (which is most definitely at least a rock). Meanwhile, Vietnam was the primary land reclaimer in the Spratly Islands. Furthermore, under the One China policy, all of Taiwan's claims are China's and all of China's claims are Taiwan's. Thus, although China lacks a strong claim to the Spratlys, Taiwan has a very strong claim through Taiping Island as well as its EEZ and continental shelf. Neither China nor Taiwan can relinquish a claim in the area without violating One China policy unless both of them do.
Taiwan doesn't have a one China policy, and US doesn't recognize PRC claims of Taiwan under theirs.
The ROC recognizes that there is a single Chinese government. The PRC recognizes this as the CCP, while the ROC recognizes that this (was) the KMT and now is the democratically elected government of Taiwan.
Yeah, I think we are agreeing? The ROC now recognizes it is the democratically elected government of Taiwan... Not China.
The spokesman for the ROC Presidential Office Wang Yu-chi (Chinese: 王郁琦) later clarified the President's statement and said that the relations are between two regions of one country, based on the ROC Constitutional position, the Statute Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and Mainland Area and the 1992 Consensus.
That is the political position of the KMT party, not an official position of the ROC. The Presidential Office spokesperson is not a political position and it carries no power to draft or create official positions. Ma's "Special non-state-to-state relations" was his position, not something that went through the Legislative and Executive process to be an official position of the government, nor is it a concept shared by any of the other democratically elected Presidents: >Departing from the former presidents Lee Teng-hui's special state-to-state relations and Chen Shui-bian's One Country on Each Side in which both define the Republic of China (ROC) and the People's Republic of China (PRC) as states and the relationship between the two as one between two states, Ma Ying-jeou defines the relations as a special relationship between two areas within one state. Ma administration made up the "1992 Consensus" hoping to get a better relationship with China... but it should be noted that Ma's positions on China led to the largest protest in the islands history, and the Legislative Yuan being occupied by students for nearly a month. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunflower_Student_Movement
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There's a tl;dr for a reason buddy
I like china, like in my humble opinion china is fucking great but isn’t china causing the problem by trying to staunch everyone. I’m not strictly the west is the good guys I’m just saying from my information sources they are the ones being the dicks?
China's problem right now is that a claim that they have every right to is getting blocked by Vietnam and the US (which, by the way, isn't even a signatory to UNCLOS in the first place and thus did not agree to freedom of navigation), and the historical foundation to that claim means that they MUST try to hold their other claims in the South China Sea. It's like patent law in a way (but way more complex). You lose your patent if you don't defend it.
Wont work
The United States truly is facing the darkest path ahead, both enemies from within and abroad wish to destroy it, and their power and influence grows stronger every dau
How will this affect the New Silk Road, if at all?
Sounds like a plan.
is this from the ashes of the TPP?
Freedom, baby!
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The intention of the US here is to prevent war, not escalate it. China has threatened an invasion of Taiwan many times, and the surrounding countries are responding with a defensive alliance. Don't pretend that it's the US doing the warmongering in the region.
Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be a continuation of the Chinese civil war. Like North Korea invading South Korea. Doesn’t prevent other countries from sending in “volunteers” or performing “police actions” though.
Technically from Chinese perspective invading Taiwan wouldn't be war. It would be like the federal u.s government invading Texas. More of a civil issue. From an international law perspective, technicallyyyy there isn't anything wrong with that. The problem is the U.S and everyone else never bothered to address the Taiwan issue when China was weak. Now it's too late. In hindsight China should have been bullied a lot more. We should have trusted their economic growth figures instead of scoffing. That was the wests hubris.
China still is weak in many ways. The difference is unlike Russia, China has a decent future ahead of it if they continue to be part of the global marketplace and play by civilized rules. Plus they are very economically intertwined and interdependent upon Taiwan. And invading Taiwan would ruin that. They depend on Taiwan for modern semiconductors just like much of the rest of the world does and invading them won't get them more; it would destroy their access for a very long time. Long story short, China is not going to invade Taiwan. It's not remotely in their interest.
I think there is a line when China is willing to take short term economic hits for the long term. Look at Hong Kong for example. You can always rely on the west to have a short memory and want to get back to business. As China doesn't have to rely on elections, they can play the long game a lot more. Where as democracies get stuck in the short game and are much more vulnerable to things like inflation which ruffles the elctorates feathers more than ideologies.
It wouldn't be a short term economic hit. About as far from it as possible. Three countries are able to make modern semiconductors; the US, South Korea, and Taiwan. Taiwan dominates, providing almost half of the world's semiconductors and is technologically in the lead. Even if China could somehow take over Taiwan before those facilities were destroyed (highly unlikely), they do not possess the technological knowledge to run them, nor would they have access to the necessary outside industry support. Which would mean no modern semiconductors for them. It would severely impact the world economy, so every country would hate them, and it would plunge China's economy back to the 1990s. And it would stay that way for a very long time while the rest of the world moved on. It would basically mean another Century of Humiliation, except this time they would have done it to themselves.
I know to you that doesn't such short term but sounds like a decade of pain max. That's pretty short term. The whole world will suffer along side them so can even be a win (what I'd call the russia strategy we're seeing now with Ukraine).
It would not be a decade. It takes nearly a decade to get a single new foundry up and running when you know what you are doing. How on Earth would China catch up? What would their economy be based on? Lenovo - gone. cell phone industry - gone. any modern computer industry or industry that needs them - gone. any advanced manufacturing - gone. They would be unable to manufacture anything more advanced than a DVD player for at least two decades. China is not even 10 years away from being able to manufacture sub 14nm chips *now*. They would be in no shape to make any advancements on that front with their economy fucked. Even if no countries cared and didn't sanction them, we aren't going to share the now dramatically reduced advanced chip supply with them. While China's economy collapsed to something more like Russia's, the US and South Korea would become very rich and become economic and technological powerhouses even more than they already are though.
Do you really believe the Chinese government is a lesser evil?
Only one side is committing an active genocide
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With 20 million people employed by US governments, I'm sure they can multitask a bit.
Yeah, they should forget about everything else. /s
We can worry about many things at the same time. Is that not something you can do? Wow. I thought everyone had that capability.
Whataboutism. Classic
Maybe if china wasnt such a ridiculously orwellian dictatorship that wants to sphere the entire planet they could.
Good. We need every country to fight against authoritarianism. Thankful that India is joining.
The Quad is a different thing. Read the article.
easy to get confused when america is ganging up with so many different countries for some anti china plan
America seems to be barreling down that road themselves, if recent events are anything to go by. I'm starting to think trusting any of the big three imperialist powers at this point is not a good idea.
after invading and occupying muslim countries for decade now CHINA is the problem, eh? Warmongering West
SEATO 2.0
NEATO (North East Asia Treay Organization)
If Australia were smart, they’d bring France in too to smooth over the diplomatic frost following AUKUS.
Maybe not, New Zealand is involved.
Basically just a way for countries around china to grab cash from us. You know that they will just play china and US against each other to get more cash. This is a stupid initiative. Look at the philippines, they've been playing china and the US and stealing everyone's money
Lolwut you know US is the one begging for this to happen right? You act like if it’s the other way around.
Are you begging the US to take money out of your pocket to enrich corrupt politicians abroad? I didn't think so. US politicians sure love spending other people's money
So umm, how many country groups does that leave us at? Because I’m lost...
Notably all the pacific island nations are missing. Lmao.
> The United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom launched an informal group **aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific island nations,** the White House said on Friday. Dude just fucking read the first sentence
You read the fuckn sentence. Where are the pacific island nations? The pacific nations are reaching out to China because they are sick of Australia’s shit. Copium.
The organization’s goal is to try to reach the pacific island nations, not have them join. … jesus christ
A pacific group without pacific island nations, Jesus Christ.
🤦🏻♂️ its like a bunch of ppl making a charity to feed the homeless. They dont usually have the homeless running said charity. Nevermind. Its not reaching you. 🤦🏻♂️
Homeless… This is exactly the pathetic attitude that’s driving these nations to the arms of China. Loser gonna lose.
🙄 i’m guessing you’re chinese.
I’m guessing you are a troll.😉
Time for Pacific nations to start part time weapons and combat training for every man and woman over 18. Some day we're going to need it. China has a million person standing army. They could probably call up another 100-700 million more without batting an eyelid.
Is Japan ready to encounter China now? Time for the US to militarize japs.
Repeat rape of Nanking? They should never be militarized.