China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan on Monday to showcase Beijing’s ability to cut off the island from outside support in a conflict, testing Taipei’s resolve to defend itself and its arsenal of U.S.-made weapons.

The Eastern Theatre Command said it had deployed troops, warships, fighter jets and artillery for its “Justice Mission 2025” exercises to encircle the democratically governed island, conduct live fire and simulated strikes on land and sea targets, and drills to blockade Taiwan’s main ports.

The live-firing exercises will continue on Tuesday across a record seven zones designated by China’s Maritime Safety Administration, making the drills the largest to date by total coverage and in areas closer to Taiwan than previous exercises. The military had initially said artillery firing would be confined to five zones.

  • xxam925@lemmy.zip
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    8 months ago

    “Democratically controlled” just means controlled by capitalists. I’m tired of the trope.

  • Socialism_Everyday@reddthat.com
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    8 months ago

    From the article:

    The exercises began 11 days after the U.S. announced $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, the largest ever weapons package for the island

    Surely Trump is just being a good guy selling weapons to heckin wholesome Republic of China (which not only claims officially the entirety of the Mainland, but also the entire country of Mongolia and many lands in Bhutan, Pakistan, India or even Japan). Come on, surely this US involvement in war is the correct one!

    • REDACTED@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      I feel like anyone who says “Republic of China” is a CCP troll. The comment itself is unhinged. No, Taiwan does not want to conquer most of the Asia, this is simply about stopping another invasion. You’re the baddies, leave others alone, no one wants to invade you.

  • Kami@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    WHHHAAAATTTTTT??!??!!!?

    But all Lemmy.ml dwellers said China is not an imperialist country!!!

    This must be some shitty western propaganda!!!

    • freagle@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Interesting that would consider it imperialism when a country does a military exercise on the coast of their own country near an island that was stripped away from one’s direct control by imperialists when the military exercise is specifically to confirm readiness for the thing that the imperialists keep saying they are going to do - establish greater and greater military presence in the region.

      Remember, you likely already agree that the US is an imperialist force, the largest in the world. Does the US deploy its military for good reasons or is it an abusive bully? If China says that it hears the US threats to build up military surrounding China and in particular in Taiwan, is it consistent for us to believe the US is telling the truth this time?

      • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        an island that was stripped away from one’s direct control by imperialists

        Can you elaborate on this? I love watching gymnastics.

        • freagle@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          During the Chinese civil war, the PLA defeated the KMT and the KMT fled to the island province of Taiwan, a part of the nation state of China.

          The US and British navies protected the KMT during their retreat and afterward, essentially creating a protectorate out of the island while the KMT prosecuted the fascist White Terror, with mass killings and political repression for the next 40 years, only adopting a liberal democratic formation once the Brits established a similar one in Hong Kong, which was another imperialist holding stripped away from China.

          That you don’t know this about the history of the island you claim as your cause is unsurprising

          • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            My question was how exactly it was “stripped away from the CCP’s control”, which you didn’t address at any point in your colourful answer. You yourself admit it was always Republican territory. so which is it, then?

            • freagle@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              I love repeating myself in these threads. It’s so fun. Political parties do not control territories. That’s not how anything works. When Japan took Korea, it was not a party within Japan that took it. It was the nation state that took it. When Japan took Taiwan it was not a party within Japan that took Taiwan, it was the nation state that took it. When the US took Hawaii, Guam, Puerto Rico, etc same thing. You would never say that it was Democratic-Republicans that own the Louisiana Purchase even though they were in power when the purchase took place.

              The nation state of China, with its competing factions, reclaimed the island of Taiwan by pushing out the Japanese. The retreating army of the KMT fled to the island as refuge and the British and American warships protected them, setting up the island and the party to be a fascist vassal of the North Atlantic imperial regime. At no time did the retreating army secede nor declare independence. It claimed that despite having lost the war and despite having lost popular support that it was still the rightful government of China. Never mind that it had to kill tens of thousands of Chinese citizens who disagreed. Never mind that it spent 40 years violently and brutally crushing all forms of dissent against its position. And never mind that the imperialists never stopped supporting the KMT with warships, intelligence, arms, foreign direct investment, and diplomacy despite it being about as legitimate of a government as Juan Guaido.

              Saying that the island belongs to the KMT is a category error. Parties don’t own territory. Nation states do. This is why the UN doesn’t have separate delegations for Labor, Conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Greens, AFD, etc.

              • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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                8 months ago

                You have a pretty peculiar understanding of how nation-states claim territory. Using your own logic, I take it you believe that Gaza and the West bank are rightfully Israeli territory? if not, what’s the difference?*

                * “Murica bad” is not a valid answer

                • freagle@lemmy.ml
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                  8 months ago

                  All of Palestine was declared Terra Nullus by the imperialist. It is they who setup the system of Westphalian nation-states. This is, as they call it, the rules-based order. The reality is that Palestine should have been granted nation-state status by the entire world decades ago, but racism prevented that from happening, and now we have the situation we have. Some nation states have officially recognized Palestine’s status as a nation-state, but it has not been enough and it is far too late to have immediate impacts.

                  As for whether my understanding is strange, I would ask you to consider why the KMT itself did not claim Taiwan to be an independent nation state for the 50 years where it was a one-party fascist dictatorship on the island. Why did they find it so important to establish that they were still a faction within China and not a secessionary movement away from China? I didn’t decide that that’s what they would do. My understanding is fully inline with the understanding of the KMT and the CPC and the rest of official governments of the world. It’s really only the uninformed and the politically biased that have a strange understanding whereby the rules don’t matter, the never matter, and only what they believe is the correct moral answer, given their limited understanding, could ever be the right answer.