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Someone hear something? Nah, must be the wind.
(hexbear.net)
https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1737771585153499494
Lmao, not a piracy problem. Just the Yemenis carrying out legitimate naval interdiction operations and interference from Israel's allies. Mfkers pretending this is a piracy problem like off the coast of Somalia when it's just ships affiliated with Israel being interdicted.
Well I am far from a lib if you read my other comments, though it seems like you are the type that might actually go through them all and find some hint of libness or something.
Anyway, off the top of my head, things I disagree with the Chinese state on include being mass surveillance society, and their long stated, and recently reiterated, position that Taiwan rightfully belongs under Chinese rule.
Oh right, I am also actually against the widespread standardization of the various different languages in different regions of China to 'Simplified Chinese'.
In my lifetime I have had the chance to speak with many different persons born in China. Some were wealthy, sent to America for college and spoke excellent English. Some were wealthy and sent to America for college and spoke basically no English whatsoever. Many, many others, working class, spoke little English but had great fun communicating to me via the aid of translation apps... I was about as bad at 'Chinese' as they were at English, but we always laughed about it.
I say 'Chinese' in quotes here me because different such Chinese people from different regions, if they do not know the common tongue of Mandarin / Simplified Chinese... they actually cannot understand nearly anything said, or even written, in the actual native 'dialects' of their regions. Canton/Hong Kong, Nanjing/Beijing, Shanghai... they are functionally entirely different languages.
For more on this:
https://asiasociety.org/china-learning-initiatives/many-dialects-china
To me this means that the standardization of the Chinese language into 'Simplified Chinese' functionally constitutes the erasure of the ancient and native tongues of huge portions of the population, and reminds me of what America has done to Native Americans, at least in terms of functionally making it so that very few grandchildren can speak the language of their grandparents.
Now, given how you have already established that you like to jump to the conclusion that I am a lib, I also now have to state what should be obvious but otherwise in this context would not be without specification:
America and basically all of the developed Western countries (UK really stands out) are also mass surveillance societies, as are others.
And no, I do not think that Taiwan is some kind of magical wonderland, it is a capitalist society and thus has all the problems that come with capitalism. And yes, I am aware that its modern government derives from basically the remnants of Chiang Kai Shek and his army, and more or less the basically just-out-of-feudalistic-nobility class of wealthy capitalists that managed to flee with him.
That being said, I do believe that now, nearly 100 years later, having been their own society for that long, it is at the very least not ethical for another state to assert their ability to govern a people who generally speaking seem to me at least to be fiercely opposed to that.
If I am factually wrong about any of this, I would appreciate it if you could correct any glaringly false things my views here are based on, or if you could point me to somewhere I could learn more.
China is not trying to erase those other languages. They are working harder to preserve them than any in the west ever did. However creating a unified language so everyone can communicate has obvious benefits. I see the pragmatism there.
As to Taiwan, I am under the impression most people are ambivalent the way any liberal citizen is about politics. However, they are a small island nation in a geologically active zone. Self determination is not an option. They are going to be in the US sphere of influence or the Chinese. It can only be obvious based on past performance. How poorly the US would end up treating Taiwan. So if you actually care about the future of Taiwanese people than you would hope China presses their legal right to govern the area.
So first off, I am by no means purporting to be some kind of expert on China, especially as I cannot read or speak any Chinese dialect to be able to actually experience their media, news, culture etc.
That being said:
If the entire European union /somehow/ decided to standardize language to... I dont know, Esperanto, or Interlingua, and as a matter of policy, forbade schools generally accessible to the vast majority of public school children from teaching the language of the country they are from, would you consider that 'erasing languages'?
Well, I think there is a large difference between self determination and being in a sphere of influence.
Ukraine is now very, very much more obviously in the NATO sphere of influence militarily, and the EU's sphere of influence economically. But they still have self determination. They can elect leaders, vote, blah blah liberal democracy, but the self determination does functionally exist.
True they are not an island, but they were considered to be a weak, liberal democracy, contested by two powerful spheres of influence... should the ideal situation for be either loss of self determination and formal annexation/absorption into Russia, or perhaps Poland?
Conversely, (though also not an island) the Palestinians have barely had any real self determination since the Nakba, as they have been made, and are still, so totally beholden to Israel economically that even though they do have their own government, its decisions and goals are constantly rendered functionally void as they have no real effective means to alter their situation meaningfully on their own.
They have even less functional power to use their self determined leaders and government and quasi governmental organizations to meaningfully act on their own, and are basically totally economically beholden to Israel, and basically in military terms are caught between Israel + US, and various other Middle Eastern states and organizations.
Should they give up what little self determination they have left, and formally just join Israel (who certainly will not let them do this as they are currently busy genociding them) or a nearby Arab state (all of whom will nearly certainly also not do this?)
You can go even further with your logic here.
Should the Kurds give up their struggle to carve out a formal right of self determination and simply acquiesce to being ruled, divided, by autocrats who claim the territories where most of them live, or simply all migrate their territory within one bordering autocratic state and just hope to not be oppressed there?
The point I am trying to make here is that I do not believe that the general principle of a small, relatively weak people should simply acquiesce to a total loss of self-determination simply because they are massively influenced by larger nearby powers.
If, as another commenter mentioned to me somewhere in this thread, the Taiwanese people actually use their self-determination to voluntarily integrate with the PRC, I would respect that.
But just using the logic of 'they have powerful neighbors so they must obviously give up their autonomy to one of them' is not compelling to me at all.
Where is your evidence that China is doing this? I've read that it's teaching Mandarin in schools alongside the local language. It's more like, you know, schools in the EU teaching English while also teaching German or French, etc
Damn that's crazy cuz I heard Ukraine cancelled its election, banned opposition parties, and keeps a kill list of foreign and domestic journalists, is this the new model of liberal democracy?
Edit: also is self determination when your new government is chosen by Victoria Nuland, then a few years later you elect some literal joker to put an end to the civil war, then he fucks around with multiple treaties and ceasefires, then finds out, then gives a standing ovation to an Original Vintage Nazi, lol lmao