World Politics

[Tommy]

22 minutes ago, Stan said:

 

 

Glad they arrested him. Another dictatorship is not what this world needs. 

[MUFC]

 

[Azeem]

This was the U.S exit strategy in Vietnam as well. Was it Cambodia or Laos that U.S dropped more bombs on than in WWII before leaving Vietnam ? even though they were not at war with them. 

Create another front just before leaving so people don't focus that much on the already mess. 

[nudge]

56 minutes ago, Beelzebub said:

This was the U.S exit strategy in Vietnam as well. Was it Cambodia or Laos that U.S dropped more bombs on than in WWII before leaving Vietnam ? even though they were not at war with them. 

Both. Laos became the most heavily bombed country (per capita) in the world, while more than 2.5 million tonnes of bombs were dropped on Cambodia, killing hundreds of thousands, maiming even more, and indirectly leading to the Khmer Rouge rise to power, which then resulted in the killing of up to 2 million people. There are still endless unexploded ordinances buried across the country. 

[Tommy]

 

[Azeem]

I think absolute veto power is a farce. Sure if some county is the major contributer in some particular sector they should have veto in that field like largest economy having veto in economics affairs but veto anything is stupid. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 04/01/2023 at 05:20, Beelzebub said:

I think absolute veto power is a farce. Sure if some county is the major contributer in some particular sector they should have veto in that field like largest economy having veto in economics affairs but veto anything is stupid. 

Problem is the EU's not a country - it's an economic union. And none of the countries that signed up to participate in that union really agreed to give up sovereignty over themselves in the way that getting rid of the absolute veto would cause. And that is a slippery slope that can lead to the economic union falling apart. There's probably some middle ground compromise that should be made.

[MUFC]

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-far-right-mp-calls-subdue-last-war

[Dr. Gonzo]

3 hours ago, MUFC said:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-far-right-mp-calls-subdue-last-war

It's good to see that thousands of Israelis have protested against this new coalition government that has been formed.

[Stan]

Jacinta Ardern stepping down as NZ PM. Going out somewhat on a high, but citing burnout. 

[Stan]

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 25/01/2023 at 01:47, Stan said:

 

 

I feel bad for Canadians tbh. Their government seems so out of touch and the opposition is run by a guy who occasionally sounds reasonable (like in this clip tbh) but then often veers into far right insanity.

It reminds me of the US with a veneer of reasonableness. Or UK politics but without the self-destructive idiocy that comes with inept people in every level of leadership.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I think China's a pretty interesting country to look at politically right now. Xi has undone a lot of the good work that China has done to progress and develop a lot as a country that came under Deng. The company I work for has an office in Beijing and another in Hong Kong and it's been startling seeing how many of them have requested transfers to offices in other countries. One transferred to my office and he says it's terrible what's happened to China and how things are going back to how they were before the 90s there & basically anyone who's got money and an education has thought about leaving as soon as they can. And that's me hearing that from people I've been told really don't like to talk about anything political because of the fear of repercussion... so I wasn't expecting to hear anything like that.

COVID sort of forced a sudden swift to authoritarianism (not that China felt very non-authoritarian to me when I was there in 2018 - because to me, it very much felt authoritarian) and before the pandemic, Xi had really consolidated his power over the CCP.

And recently they've just drastically shifted their foreign policy to what they call the "warrior wolf" policy, even though in January they've moved the "face" of the warrior wolf policy to another role instead of as FM. But the warrior wolf (the stupid name comes from a Chinese nationalistic action movie) policy involves taking a very confrontational approach to foreign policy. Meanwhile Chinese-Western relations are probably about as bad as they've been since Deng.

It's an interesting situation because China seems to be moving away from the path it was on before, but the west and China are both incredibly dependent on each other. I think Russia's invasion of Ukraine has sort of shown a massive red flag on having economic dependence with an authoritarian government that is getting increasingly confrontational. But it's also a different kettle of fish, China's an economic powerhouse & the world's manufacturing hub. Getting western business to drop China will be tough, profits almost always come before morality. But that spy balloon sent over the US nuclear silos that was shot down recently is I think making a lot more people in the US at least look at China in a different way to how they would have been looked at 3 years ago.

But China's already broken their treaty with the UK over Hong Kong and the world largely stayed silent, similar... but different... to Russia seizing Crimea. Will China see what's going on in Ukraine as a sign to not try something similar with Taiwan? Or are they on a crash course to trying to "reclaim" Taiwan and putting the west in a situation where they've got to think about serious economic ramifications vs. defending Taiwan, an important Asian ally... and I'm pretty sure also the largest supplier of semiconductors/microchips to the world?