August 1st's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
Go here for live updates on the Taiwan situation.
August 3rd's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
No updates on Thursdays.
August 5th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
August 6th's update is here! TLDR? Here's the summary.
No updates on Sundays.
Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ Gleb Bazov, banned from Twitter, referenced pretty heavily in what remains of pro-Russian Twitter.
https://t.me/asbmil ~ ASB Military News, banned from Twitter.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday Patrick Lancaster - crowd-funded U.S journalist, mostly pro-Russian, works on the ground near warzones to report news and talk to locals.
https://t.me/riafan_everywhere ~ Think it's a government news org or Federal News Agency? Russian language.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ Front news coverage. Russian langauge.
https://t.me/rybar ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine
With the entire western media sphere being overwhelming pro-Ukraine already, you shouldn't really need more, but:
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Last week's discussion post.
People on Telegram are seething with rage what China didn't take the Yankee bait and start a hot war between nuclear powers. Do these people just want to die in nuclear hellfire?
China will respond to this and China will work to dismantle US imperial power but they are going to be smart about it instead of acting out in rash emotional attacks that could easily lead to a world war.
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Chinese government needs to put up or shut up. They make large statements then take tiny actions. Everyone sees it. It does not look good.
The correct stance is either to pull the trigger to get what you want by economic and military force, or quietly bide your time until you can. Don’t just swing around wildly with threats and then back down.
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They are correct. Action or nothing. China always manages to fumble almost every foreign policy action. I say this as constructive criticism, I fully support the PRC I am just always frustrated by them making the wrong call.
The need to get a phone line to DPRK and consult them, because DPRK is WAY better about their stances geopolitically. The problem is that PRC is trying to have their cake and eat it too right now in regards to US relations, they want to enjoy trade and investments but also want to remove the shackles imposed on them to contain them by the US.
You can’t have both. The US only does business this way, they do not treat third world colonized nations as equals the way China wishes to. The deal of Chinese rapprochement by Nixon/Kissinger/Deng was one of master and subordinate. They need to accept this and purge the last of the pro-American fantasies and sympathizers from their government, the time of fooling Americans into moving their means of production to your shores is over. They are onto the plan, time to enter the next phase.
Xi it’s time to hit the communism button and nationalize American assets and mass sell off American holdings. Seize Taiwan.
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Good I hope the government takes heed
I am seething myself (even though I think something will still happen). I’m just too proud to admit to anyone irl where I’m surrounded by libs.
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That’s cruel. :agony-minion: (although I am sure there are people out deliberately trying to hijack the narrative)
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Man. Fucking shite. It’s like my whole body is crying for a drink
Plovy need drinky
In the end I went for a good old plov with vodka. :stalin-feels-good:
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Pretty much all of this 100% correct.
they're censoring shit about pelosi's visit which is pretty funny
lol I was just reading through some threads on Zhihu, and damn, a lot of disappointment there.
Let's be honest, would anybody in Washington or Beijing be genuinely upset with the news that Pelosi's plane has been shot down?
That's just successful diplomacy.
Literally no one liked Franz Ferdinand. They still went to war over his interrupted car ride
I thought Franz Ferdinand was pretty good, but their later albums fell off a bit
I mean no one was willing to go to war for that either, the miscommunication, complex treaties, and dick measuring all tied in with horrid timing is what went wrong. it was a series of half-assed bluffs that all accidentally became real
Would have been nice if China at least escorted Pelosi’s plane away and started patrols above Taiwan airport as a show of force.
Instead they talked big and then blinked. If you are not willing to go through with anything, don’t talk big. This isn’t the first time China has done this either - they talk big with Solomon Islands and Pakistan and then don’t back it up when the US calls them on their bluff. Stop endangering others with your cocky cowardice, either shit or get off the pot.
If China wasn’t going to respond they should have downplayed this. Now they look weak and bullied, and all the axis of resistance will see Russia as the rightful leader and not China (bad)
I'm loving the people on Russian telegram who are like "This plays right into Putin's hands, this has fucked over both the EU and US"
Is it possible for something to be both copium and the correct analysis? Because I think I've found it
I think the correct analysis right now is that even though it is bait it is also the beginning of an extremely dangerous slippery slope that could escalate very quickly. What is just a regional conflict could escalate because it appears many western ghouls are now loving the idea of trying to distract the people from the coming winter misery with a new world war and a bigger boogeyman. Hey if the economy finaly crashes and people start starving/freezing then blame
PutinChina!Clearly it is obvious the Ukraine war is now decided and they don't care anymore, maybe they'll even try to make amends with Putin in order to then turn and focus on China.
The point is if China doesn't act decisively this is very scary and nobody knows where it will lead.
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Wars of de-colonizing unification against colonists are good actually, I say this unironically
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I would support a war of liberation in Palestine, or one of de-colonizing Israel by Iran. I support DPRK invading occupied Korea to liberate it. I support Russia’s countering of coups in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Syria and Ukraine. I support class war and national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle
It doesn’t need to be right now, but China better fucking do something about Taiwan. Wait a week then blockade it and siege it if needed. Sell off American holdings and dump USD, nationalize American assets and Taiwanese assets. They cannot allow themselves to keep getting walked all over, not right now in this pivotal moment of global opportunity.
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Taiwan is a rogue comprador state and a liability to all of Asia, and willing participant in Western containment of China. Siege is the compromise, China is well within their ability and rights to seize the island by force
And what happens after they seize the island? This isn't a videogame where once you win against your opponent, their units entirely disappear and the entire area is at your disposal. Unlike the situation in Crimea and the Donbass with Russians who are sympathetic towards Russia, the vast majority of Taiwanese don't want to be part of the PRC. This is reality, regardless of whether you believe they are brainwashed or mentally colonized or whatever. They do not want to be part of the PRC. The main reason Russia was even able to successfully take Crimea is because unlike Taiwan, Crimeans culturally identify with Russians and have faced persecution from the rest of Ukrainian society, meaning they were more than willing to join the Russian Federation.
Taiwan isn't like Tibet because the vast majority of Tibetans do not want their own sovereign landlocked country but would rather hitch their wagon on to China. Taiwan isn't like Xinjiang because the people of Xinjiang, both Uyghurs and Han, would rather be a part of the world's largest economy than be like Kyrgyzstan. Taiwan isn't like Hong Kong, where even at the height of the protests, there was an equal amount of counterprotests by people who supported the PRC and 1c2s. The vast majority of Taiwanese do not want to be part of the PRC.
Having said that, nothing is set in stone. And it's incumbent on the PRC to make the case for reunification to the people of Taiwan. Fortunately for the PRC and unfortunately for the West, most Taiwanese do not want independence either, but would rather adhere to the status quo where Taiwan exists in this weird political limbo. But the status quo is a form of soft reunification since Taiwan's economy gets further entwined with the Mainland with each passing year, which is why the US has to resort to these cringey hail marys because in lieu of some major disaster, reunification is inevitable.
Besides, the real strength of the PRC isn't in its military but its economy. And faced with a geopolitical rival that's experiencing record levels of inflation, among other economic woes, why would the PRC stoop to the level of some tinpot dictator instead of hitting where it really hurts? Like seriously, how would a jet escort actually hurt the US? Hell, even shooting down the fucking plane wouldn't do much either. Great, some senile ghoul who's too senile to do her daily tasks is no longer around to be useless dead weight in the halls of Congress.
The vast majority of people in Israel and USA don’t want to de-colonize either. Tough titties, the dialectic of history moves on and compradors and colonizers will be swept away
At the very least China needs to install a puppet government in Taiwan and oust the imperialists
I mean, they're settlers living in a settler colony on stolen land. Of course they wouldn't want to decolonize and return land back to the Indigenous. But unless you're arguing Taiwan is some Han settler colony that has to return land back to the Taiwanese aborigine, it's not particularly applicable to Taiwan.
Taiwan was settled and colonized by the KMT, the indigenous population massacred en masse during the white terror, it’s no different than Israel in this regard. The ROC is not legitimate, and the nation and settler-state of “Taiwan” should cease to exist, but that’s very unrealistic in the short term. What is more realistic and still necessary is to kick the separatist factions and imperialist compradors out of power and permanently secure Chinese Taipei as Chinese, and not the puppet state of the west
The White Terror largely targeted suspected communists and dissidents regardless whether they were waishengren, benshengren, or aborigine. "The White Terror was the KMT targeting innocent benshengren" is literally a DPP talking point, you know, the party that's pushing for Taiwanese independence. Furthermore, the conflation of the Taiwanese aborigine and the benshengren is another DPP talking point, where they both get lumped as "indigenous" even though the aborigine was around in Taiwan for 6 millennia before benshengren began migrating there during the Ming dynasty.
"Taiwan" is the Mandarin approximation of the Taivoan people, which sounds like "Taiwan" when spoken. There's no need to change the name.
I wouldn't characterize the KMT as compradors. They're closer to the Chinese national bourgeoisie if anything. Why else would the CPC ally with the KMT during the Warlord Era? The Northern Expedition was essentially the proletariat and peasantry, represented by the CPC, allying with the national bourgeoisie, represented by the KMT, to oust the actual compradors from power.
I think a lot could be said about China and Taiwan relations, but for starters you wont get the full picture here just by looking at random polls. The issue isn't just being part of China, it also includes a significant component of being played as a pawn by American interests against their fellow han Chinese. I think just like in Ukraine many people who otherwise wouldn't want to live in Russia have come to accept that anything was better than what the Ukrainians were doing while trying to defend the territory, and so they've accepted the occupation for what it is, a chance of a better life. Ukraine was already significantly poorer than Russia.
Taiwan is already quite dependent on trade and investment with China. The their share of trade with China amounted to 180 billion last year. Taiwan simply can't afford to sustain itself without trading with China.
But the point isn't just the economics but the realy material conditions. The west will give you weapons, planes, tanks, missiles, but not jobs or food.
For Taiwan the issue will simply be how much of an economic disaster are you willing to accept for some vague idea of national identity. You don't eat nationalism. You don't keep yourself warm at night with nationalism.
The question of an occupation to me is not an issue. Everyone speaks the same language and there is already a huge amount of economic integration between both countries. Taiwanese should have no problem acquiring Chinese visas and move to the mainland if necessary.
Militarily speaking this war is even more lopsided than Russia vs Ukraine, there is no conceivable way for Taiwan to resist an invasion. The nationalists fervor to use civilians as shields like the Ukrainian Nazis is also not present. Without the US directly intervening(WW3) you should not expect civilian casualties to be particularly high.
This is different from Ukraine where they think terrorism against their own population would make them afraid of accepting the Russian occupation.
Which is why they're attempting to destroy the Han Chinese identity of Taiwanese people. The DPP has been extremely instrumental in this through desinicization of the Taiwanese education system. The damage has been done as the majority of Taiwanese zoomers do not see themselves as Chinese or Han. It is, of course, not set in stone and doesn't preclude subsequent generations from being resinicized, but I think the majority of an entire generation has been lost. And this isn't even getting into the really mentally colonized ones who pine for the days when Taiwan was a Japanese colony. Taiwan is actually pretty fucked up mentally, even worse than Hong Kong, and it's precisely because it hasn't been fully decolonized like the rest of China. The PRC would have to take all this into account.
This is true for supporters of the KMT, who tend to be more pragmatic and less ideologically driven outside of vague liberalism and anti-communism. The KMT also completely ate shit in the last Taiwanese presidential election. Tsai Ing-Wen, who herself was also fairly unpopular and almost got primaried, blew out her opponent by simply campaigning how the KMT is going to sell out Taiwan to China and turn Taiwan into Hong Kong (the Hong Kong protests were occurring during that time).
This is the go-to argument for the KMT, who prefer maintaining the status quo and fostering business ties with the Mainland. Too bad the DPP is the ruling party, and unlike the KMT, the DPP are complete comprador sellouts. They also have almost complete control of Taiwanese media, especially popular culture. It also doesn't help the KMT once upon a time ruled Taiwan as a military dictatorship and has that terrible history behind it. In modern Taiwanese society thanks in no small part to the DPP and pro-separatist voices, the KMT is seen as the party of uncool waishengren boomers.
Occupation is absolutely going to be a thing if a populace is hostile towards your rule and has connections to your geopolitical rivals (ie the West).
I said in my previous post about how the status quo is soft reunification and inevitable, but I forgot about the DPP playing the role of saboteur. As the party of Japanese-simping American-bootlicking compradors. I believe they're being steered by the US to make reunification as costly and bloody as possible. They're going to lead Taiwan off a cliff. and I don't want to think of the human cost.
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The current one China policy is being openly and flagrantly ignored, much like Minsk II (officially endorsed, de facto ignored). And just like Minsk II, this cannot hold and will erupt soon due to US provocation. The whole world is laughing at the US mockery of China’s sovereignty and China’s inability to do anything about it, nobody actually is respecting the One China policy from the west regardless of their official words.
Slow economic, political and diplomatic takeover is the nice way to go about it, but America is going to fight it tooth and nail. Siege is the middle compromise to break Taiwanese separatist factions and regain political control of the island. The violent way involves amphibious assault, artillery and airstrikes on the island.
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It’s certainly less violent than opening fire with MLRS, rockets and drones which is the alternative.
China has been trying the nice and slow route for decades and Taiwan continues to drift away and act as an imperialist puppet.
Why are there so many Taiwan defenders on this site with names like yellow_parenti5 and uncle_kracker? Did you even read Settlers or Fanon 😂 ? The place needs an overthrow and decolonizing purge and that’s a fact
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Adopting a posture with no action is transparent and feckless and China’s done it before and it hasn’t gotten any results.
You are saying the best course of action is bluffing and posturing and then backing down and looking weak? That’s it? That’s really “the best” action?
I don’t base my name on famous anti-imperialist sayings or thinkers and then post in the exact opposite fashion, as a squishy westoid pacifist
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China never would have acted so brazenly and given the US a carte blanche to intervene in the reunification with Taiwan by attacking a high ranking US representative.
Unification will happen on China’s terms, almost certainly in a way that would force the US to go far out of its way to intervene
Next time they shouldn’t escalate such threats if they have no plans of acting brazenly
Nothing about the situation says China has decided to act/not act yet. The repercussions could still be yet to come, not for the US, but for its ally Taiwan
I guess we shall see in the coming days and weeks. If China rolls out a massive counter-sanctions package against the US and starts dumping their hoard of USD or nationalizing assets, I will eat my words for being too hasty to judgment. Something tells me it will be something more minor and they will continue to punt the contradictions of their intertwined relationship with the US and keep stalling on the Taiwan question
I guess I’m just conditioned to be frustrated and pissed at China’s foreign policy (or lack thereof). They sat back and did nothing about Khan in Pakistan after talking big, they have endangered the Solomon Islands with their half-ass security deals that aren’t security deals. I like their internal policies a lot, I just wish they could get a good foreign policy like DPRK or USSR