• GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Ten Chinese air force aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defence zone . . . Of those aircraft, the ministry said 10 had either crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which previously served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides, or entered the southwestern part of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ.

    For those unfamiliar with the Air Defense Identification Zone:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Defense_Identification_Zone_(Taiwan)

    Not only does it include a lot of water that isn’t part of the Strait, right off of China’s coast, it also includes a portion of Mainland China a few times larger than Taiwan itself.

    People like to talk like China is flying jets over Taipei City, but you can fly a plane from one city in Mainland China to another, only passing over land, and be in this zone. Mind you, I don’t think Taiwan having this zone is bad – countries generally should be aware of air traffic nearby – but this is part of a long history of alarmist headlines by western media regarding what is often very uninteresting air traffic in the PRC.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, obviously it’s a glorified puppet state but there’s no point in arguing from that standpoint here. If a country is to exist, it should know about local air traffic, that’s all I’m saying.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            The PRC wants a peaceful reunification, which would not be aided by them continuously flying military jets over the island. I, too, would prefer peaceful reunification, which means some level of cooperation and tolerance is necessary.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            I started writing out a timeline but I don’t know what position you’re asking from so I will say for the sake of brevity that the US kept the KMT from being run out of all of China so that the US could us the island as a threat against China – as it also attempted to do in Korea when it had more-or-less complete control of the southern half. Taiwan spent about 40 years as a military dictatorship killing tens of thousands of dissidents, native Formosans, and others (this was called the “White Terror”), while their patron the US looked the other way while it pumped resources into the country (for the ruling class, mind you) to use the island as a sweatshop site in the interim. This legacy and its connections to fellow US puppet South Korea and US ally Japan go a long way to explaining its current capacity in manufacturing, which make up its other value to the US besides geographical position.

            Both Taiwan and SK have made various attempts to assert themselves (with some success in both cases), but with the pathetic diplomatic position of the former and the continued military occupation of the latter by the US, I think “puppet state” is a fair title for them, perhaps as much as Israel, but that’s its own can of worms.

            I didn’t really intend on getting into litigating this topic, but I’m happy to discuss it as best I can.

            • randint@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I started writing out a timeline but I don’t know what position you’re asking from so I will say for the sake of brevity that the US kept the KMT from being run out of all of China […] which make up its other value to the US besides geographical position.

              Yes, I know about its not-so-glorious past and the White Terror. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed. It was terrible. However, I must respectfully disagree with you on the “puppet state” part. I don’t think that Taiwan is a puppet state. The US sponsoring Taiwan is a thing of the past. Neither is a pathetic diplomatic position a good reason for being a puppet state.

              • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                if US support dropped overnight, reunification with the mainland would become inevitable. it’s a puppet state in the sense that it’s propped up by the might of the US/NATO military.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                I didn’t see this reply before. The other commenter has it right that the relevance of its pathetic diplomatic position is that it is being propped up by the US/NATO and ultimately depends on them to exist apart from the PRC, which makes it very difficult to oppose them. Incidentally, does the US not sponsor Taiwan? Even just recently there was this, which sure seems like sponsorship to me.

                • randint@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  Apparently being sponsored by a foreign state is now counted as being a puppet state?

            • StalinForTime [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              1 year ago

              Not only did the US turn a blind eye to the White Terror, but they were positively gleeful about it, as a key target of it was of course not only indigeneous-politics based, but fundamentally anti-communist.

              Indeed a basic presupposition of the US providing you such extensive economic support, as a forward base in Asia against communism, is that you crush any opposition to its ‘proper’ functioning as such an economic and military asset. That supposes that you will crush any radical, labor, trade-union, let alone explicitly socialist or communist activity which appears to challenge the state.

  • Frank [he/him, he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Is this that stupid shit where their air defense zone covers a huge chunk of mainland China and they freak out every time China flies Chinese planes over China?

    • randint@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      If you actually read the article,

      Of those aircraft, the ministry said 10 had either crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait, which previously served as an unofficial barrier between the two sides, or entered the southwestern part of Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, or ADIZ.

      you would find that 10 aircrafts either crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or entered the southwestern part of the ADIZ. Neither of those is “flying over mainland China.”

        • randint@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          It is, but it was clearly done to provoke Taiwan. Calling this a moot point is like saying that laughing at homeless people is fine because it is not illegal.

          • brain_in_a_box [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            1 year ago

            If you consider China flying planes on its coastline to be unacceptable provocation, I’d love to know what you consider the USA sending ships half way around the world to that same coastline.

            • randint@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              China did not just fly planes on its coastline. They crossed the median line, which is an unofficial line that has been dividing the Taiwan Strait for decades. Planes and vessels from China and those from Taiwan would not cross this line to show mutual respect. China is purposely breaking this unwritten convention. See how they usually just barely cross the median line, fly parallel to the line for a bit and head back? Neither are the planes passenger planes, they are fighter jets. This is different from the US sending ships through the Strait. Sending a military ship through the Strait is a provocation to China, but it is much weaker than the direct provocation of the fighter jets crossing the median line.

              • meth_dragon [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                1 year ago

                you realize that the uptick in frequency of these ‘provocations’ only started in response to the pelosi visit? the incident that had a considerable portion of the entire chinese population howling for the cpc to shoot down the plane and engulf the world in nuclear fire? this is the cpc’s way of appeasing its very large and very rabid nationalist constituency (who are very disappointed that they have not died in a nuclear armageddon, btw) and it is a meme on the chinese internet that despite all of its rhetoric, this pathetic level of ‘not touching you’ fuckery is somehow the lowest that the cpc is willing to stoop to when faced with a de jure violation of its sovereignty.

                • Gucci_Minh [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  1 year ago

                  Broke: Don’t shoot down Pelosi because it would spark a war

                  Woke: Don’t shoot down Pelosi because it means she can go back to America and speed up their decline