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I wasn't aware Malaysia and Indonesia were U.S. allies. India should serve as a caution to those assuming other countries will just join the U.S. side of a conflict. The ally term gets tossed around loosely. Outside of Japan, South Korea, and Australia, I'm not sure if any other country could be regarded as a truly ally of the U.S. in the Eastern Pacific.
Sure, and this will continue be true until the first Chinese military units move to blockade or take any other act of war against Taiwan (or any other neighbor).
Sweden and Finland used to be "neutral" too, remember? Then they ran away from NATO and leapt to take the Russian's side because they are closer to Russia than to the USA, and clearly agree that despotic military adventurism is a great thing to have happen in your back yard.
Oh wait...
As for India; Germany stayed hot to trot on Russian energy resoures--over US objections and warnings that Russia would use them to extort the Deutsch. Also right up until the invasion.
As I said: Cautionary tale. A Taiwan blockade or invasion is the wet dream of any US politicians who want to weaken, contain, and isolate China.
I am sure that global powers like N. Korea, Pakistan and Chad will remain steadfast allies of the Chinese. Well, maybe not Pakistan; that kind of depends on how much they hate straight-up-infidels over the Uighur flavor of heretic.
With friends like these...
If China can keep playing the long game, despite Xi's purges of any dissenting voices, we can all get along. If he starts playing dipstick checkers, like Putin, that will be a quick and sad end to China's rise.
As far as invading to take freedom away that’s EXACTLY what the authoritarian bastards in Beijing are planning on doing. They will accept no compromise besides one country, two systems (which Hong Kong has proven is a lie and will not be respected). Putin is doing the same thing with Ukraine. Remove the Democratic elements from the government, install puppet leader. He wants another Lukashenko, just like Beijing wants another Carrie Lam in Taipei
Yea, I'd characterize Malaysia and Indonesia more as independent, but they also aren't particularly friendly to each other or to China. Same with Vietnam and a host of other countries in Southeast Asia where there's a lot of latent tension and a lot of latent resentment against China (and unfortunately, sometimes their ethnic Chinese minorities in those countries). India is definitely not a particular fan of China either and there's been constant flaring up of tensions at their border and with Pakistan sort of trying to figure out to what extent the enemy of their enemy makes them into an ally while China has to constantly weigh how much support to lend to a country that has been rather unstable at times and the support of which further deteriorates their relationship with India. I think as South and Southeast Asia become increasingly populous and a larger share of the world GDP and generally more developed and wealthy, China's foreign policy focus will need to shift heavily in those directions. The good thing for China though is that Russia has made such incredible blunders of late, that they can probably lean on Russia to do a lot of their bidding and meanwhile has opened up Central Asia for China to have a far greater say and influence over in a way that was unthinkable a little over a year ago. Russia's essentially presented China with an opportunity of a generation in a lot of ways. If one were more conspiracy-minded, you'd think that China would have purposefully goaded Russia into the catastrophe with how well this has been working out for China.
I'd add New Zealand as a pretty solid Pacific ally.
for china? new zealand is probably closer to china than US at this point.
Since 2020, Russia has went from 17 to 7 supporters and 62 to 32 neutral countries. Only failed states like North Korea and Eritrea is openly supporting Russia these days.
A lot of the countries that support China, or is neutral towards China, do it for financial gain. They are willing to look the other way, provided they don't get punished and the money keep coming in. If China invades Taiwan, then the west will punish countries that help China, and there will be no more financial benefits. Just like Russia, the only countries that will keep supporting China are countries that share the same ideology.
for china? new zealand is probably closer to china than US at this point.
New Zealand is part of the 5 eyes, the USA only gives that to true allies.
Yes, New Zealand earn a lot of money from China and keep a low profile to not disrupt that, but don't confuse that with them supporting China.
Polls show this clearly, 13% of kiwis see China as a friendly country, 58% view China as a threat. And only 10 percent of respondents thought China would act responsibly in the world. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/...urvey-suggests
As I said: Cautionary tale. A Taiwan blockade or invasion is the wet dream of any US politicians who want to weaken, contain, and isolate China.
If China can keep playing the long game, despite Xi's purges of any dissenting voices, we can all get along. If he starts playing dipstick checkers, like Putin, that will be a quick and sad end to China's rise.
Based on these 2 statements it would seem the US has great incentive to try to create conditions that would provoke China to deviate from their current forward path.
One way the US is trying to throw China off kilter is to pressure nations to stop selling China the best semi-conductor chips. The US has pressured businesses within Taiwan itself to participate to some extent. If the US is successful enough in halting China's ability to procure these semi-conductors, China may feel the need to take drastic action in response. If China is able to continue to get enough chips and continue to improve their own technology to the point where they are the leader in the industry than the US plan will fail.
By creating the right conditions, it demonstrates the US is perfectly willing to use Taiwan as a warzone if it were to forward our goal to stunt China's rise. I don't think China will fall into the trap, they have other ways to counteract the plan. China has a lot of money/clout and it continues to accrue more so they can afford to use some of it in situations such as this.
This article was in yesterday's news.
Beijing envoy warns Dutch of retaliation for chip curbs: ‘China won’t just swallow this’
Tan, the envoy, said the move would be “bad for China, bad for the Netherlands and world trade, and will have a negative effect on our relations and economic cooperation”.
“You are a small country, and you have always been the standard bearer for free trade. You maintain your lead by selling to China and reinvesting the proceeds,” Tan said.
“It is clear that the Americans are behind this. Their policy is to pressure allies and suppress Chinese growth through coercion, harassment and domination,” he added in the interview.
for china? new zealand is probably closer to china than US at this point.
That seems quite unlikely given both historic and recent polls of attitudes towards countries. The pandemic has unfortunately, and unfairly, also painted China in an even worse light than ever before while the cessation of Trump's presidency seemed to have made things rosier. The revealing of figures from both major parties to have been affiliated with the CCP has also now greatly changed public attitudes about the Chinese government and has greatly changed the dialogue about Chinese government influence on New Zealand as it was regarded as pretty slimy and confrontational towards a country that had for the most part been pretty receptive to friendly relations with China. I think the idea is that if this is what the Chinese government does to its friends, then perhaps it makes sense to be more cautious and wary. It's not clear if the Chinese government really got all that much intel from having people within NZ's government, but what they have clearly done is turn public sentiment in New Zealand against the Chinese government where it was previously pretty neutral or accepting.
Totally off topic, I think it'd be nice if there was a kind of confederation of different autonomous parts of China and in that kind of framework, Taiwan as part of China would make more sense. I think the Pearl River Delta region, Yangtze River Delta region, the Sichuan basin, and Taiwan as some of the fundamental blocks of this confederation could be pretty good alongside a less centralized government and less power in Beijing. Then again, this might just be from Beijing really rubbing me the wrong way as perhaps one of my least favorite cities and in my view quite awful compared to Shanghai, Suzhou, or Hangzhou.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-22-2023 at 06:06 PM..
Since 2020, Russia has went from 17 to 7 supporters and 62 to 32 neutral countries. Only failed states like North Korea and Eritrea is openly supporting Russia these days.
A lot of the countries that support China, or is neutral towards China, do it for financial gain. They are willing to look the other way, provided they don't get punished and the money keep coming in. If China invades Taiwan, then the west will punish countries that help China, and there will be no more financial benefits. Just like Russia, the only countries that will keep supporting China are countries that share the same ideology.
Not really sure it valid to utilize vote tallies from when the conflict was minor and only involved the seizing of Crimea to the full scale war we see today. It would be better to compare the vote tallies from at the start of the war to today.
That seems quite unlikely given both historic and recent polls of attitudes towards countries. The pandemic has unfortunately, and unfairly, also painted China in an even worse light than ever before while the cessation of Trump's presidency seemed to have made things rosier. The revealing of figures from both major parties to have been affiliated with the CCP has also now greatly changed public attitudes about the Chinese government and has greatly changed the dialogue about Chinese government influence on New Zealand as it was regarded as pretty slimy and confrontational towards a country that had for the most part been pretty receptive to friendly relations with China. I think the idea is that if this is what the Chinese government does to its friends, then perhaps it makes sense to be more cautious and wary. It's not clear if the Chinese government really got all that much intel from having people within NZ's government, but what they have clearly done is turn public sentiment in New Zealand against the Chinese government where it was previously pretty neutral or accepting.
Totally off topic, I think it'd be nice if there was a kind of confederation of different autonomous parts of China and in that kind of framework, Taiwan as part of China would make more sense. I think the Pearl River Delta region, Yangtze River Delta region, the Sichuan basin, and Taiwan as some of the fundamental blocks of this confederation could be pretty good alongside a less centralized government and less power in Beijing. Then again, this might just be from Beijing really rubbing me the wrong way as perhaps one of my least favorite cities and in my view quite awful compared to Shanghai, Suzhou, or Hangzhou.
just like the USSR? hahaha, i'd say we try that first in the US, just two parts needed: red states and blue states and we will achieve peace for mankind!!!
as for new zealand, they don't have much military so I think they would stay neutral for sure.
it doesn't matter how many allies there are, no one in their right mind would want to fight a naval battle close to the mainland of a super power. It doens't matter if you bring the entire world's navy. it would not outnumber the silos/mobile launcher and missiles in china.
That seems quite unlikely given both historic and recent polls of attitudes towards countries. The pandemic has unfortunately, and unfairly, also painted China in an even worse light than ever before while the cessation of Trump's presidency seemed to have made things rosier. The revealing of figures from both major parties to have been affiliated with the CCP has also now greatly changed public attitudes about the Chinese government and has greatly changed the dialogue about Chinese government influence on New Zealand as it was regarded as pretty slimy and confrontational towards a country that had for the most part been pretty receptive to friendly relations with China. I think the idea is that if this is what the Chinese government does to its friends, then perhaps it makes sense to be more cautious and wary. It's not clear if the Chinese government really got all that much intel from having people within NZ's government, but what they have clearly done is turn public sentiment in New Zealand against the Chinese government where it was previously pretty neutral or accepting.
Totally off topic, I think it'd be nice if there was a kind of confederation of different autonomous parts of China and in that kind of framework, Taiwan as part of China would make more sense. I think the Pearl River Delta region, Yangtze River Delta region, the Sichuan basin, and Taiwan as some of the fundamental blocks of this confederation could be pretty good alongside a less centralized government and less power in Beijing. Then again, this might just be from Beijing really rubbing me the wrong way as perhaps one of my least favorite cities and in my view quite awful compared to Shanghai, Suzhou, or Hangzhou.
The last time China was split into multiple parts, was the warlord period of 1916 to 1928. Quite a bloody time. China history has shown it can't be split into factions. The individual states will just fight into unification. Confederations are really a Western based concept that has been imposed on other regions of the world to often disastrous results.
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