When CNN says "oceanographic research", what they actually mean is building a sonar ray caustics model of the environment, because sound bends just like light does when the medium transmission speed changes, and the speed of sound in water changes noticably with depth,salinity,temperature.
When CNN says "unclear motivation", what they mean is that the motivation is actually pretty clear. China doesn't like that the US is building underwater surveillance infrastructure in their backyard.
The fact that this has military applications as well as scientific/commercial ones doesn't bother me. They were firmly in international rather than disputed waters, I'm pretty sure other countries eyeball our ocean shelf too and it doesn't bother me either.
To be honest I don't think China cares all that much either because they're used to the US Navy sailing about as a reminder of our treaties with various other SE Asian countries. They're veen assertive about their territorial claims with the nine-dash line, the building of artificial islands (reportedly now weaponized), and rejecting the decision of the international maritime court recently. Overall I'd characterize relations between the Chinese government and the Obama administration as cool but respectful.
I don't know what's happening with the incoming administration and don't want to make a political argument here, but I do think that publicizing the fact of the conversation between Trump and the Taiwanese President, along with the public questioning of the One China policy, probably seems like a huge loss of face for Beijing. China doesn't mind the US having relations, even friendship, with Taiwan - through private channels. Public recognition of the Taiwanese government as a sovereign entity by the US is insulting though - much as if Premier Xi in China started having friendly chats with the governor of Hawai'i or Alaska while publicly pouring scorn on DC.
China doesn't mind the US having relations, even friendship, with Taiwan - through private channels. Public recognition of the Taiwanese government as a sovereign entity by the US is insulting though - much as if Premier Xi in China started having friendly chats with the governor of Hawai'i or Alaska while publicly pouring scorn on DC.
Except that is not analogous at all.
Taiwan is de facto Independent. It has its own currency, internationally recognised passports, military, airspace and democratically elects its own representatives. It has been de facto independent from China for almost 70 years. It never fell to maoism and as a result was spared the both the great famine (Which killed more people than the Chinese civil war and Japanese invasion combined) and the cultural revolution. It peacefully transitioned to democracy over 20 years ago, around the time Chinese troops were killing hundreds of civillians in Tian Nan Men square.
It is independent for all intents and purposes. Even PRC nationalists know this, but they need to keep face by not admitting the truth.
I have several close friends from Taiwan, and visit Taipei every couple years. When I go, just for kicks I always ask people how they feel about being part of China. The answer has, invariably, been not just No, but an irritated hell no. As you say, for all practical purposes Taiwan is independent- not just in their government institutions but in the psychology of the populace: they feel like a separate country, and nothing the PRC does can change that any more than Americans could be convinced to "reunify" with the United Kingdom.
China is kidding themselves if they think reunification is going to happen. It's certainly not going to happen voluntarily. And yeah, maybe they could take the island by force, but even if they managed it and it didn't trigger an international conflict, they'd just end up being another US-in-Vietnam/Soviets-in-Afghanistan situation: a forced occupation of an angry, resentful local population, which has no possible outcome other than eventual costly withdrawal.
That hasn't stopped them in Tibet. The fact that Taiwan is a smallish island simplifies matters considerably, since China can easily impose a naval blockade and wait for rebels to run out of munitions. Agreed it would work out badly over the long term but strategically it's not hard.
I'm not arguing that Hawai'i is similar to Taiwan. I'm saying that China holding friendly top-level conversations with the governor of a state while simultaneously refusing dialogue with the federal government is the only thing I can think of that would result in a similar loss of face (degree of political embarrassment) for the USA.
> is insulting much as if Premier Xi in China started having friendly chats with the governor of Hawai'i or Alaska while publicly pouring scorn on DC
speaking somewhat loosely, actually there is no "much as if" in this sense. The Chinese have a "face saving is the most important thing" culture, and the US does not. Think of it more like the tribal regions of the -stans: China is metaphorically ready to do some honor killing over this in a way we can't grok. Doesn't mean we should acquiesce of course. I'd perhaps make the analogy that everybody in the Chinese government is as thin skinned as Trump. (I'm exaggerating to make analogies here, no need to jump all over me, of course it's more nuanced.) Meanwhile, our neighboring Mexican politicians publically pour scorn on the US all the time and it doesn't particularly affect our relations (not sure if Trump can take it tho)
In any case, it would not actually bother the US all that much if China talked to Hawaii, nor does it bother US that China talks to the Philippines; it would be to our benefit if China and the Philippines resolved their differences mutually, and the same with Taiwan; it does bother US that the Philippines would make short-sighted unwise bargains inasmuch as we get the sense that we will be involved in cleaning up the mess later, and inasmuch as it reinforces China's belief that they should throw their weight around more WRT the Biển Đông (the East Sea, off the coast of Vietnam;)
> The Chinese have a "face saving is the most important thing" culture, and the US does not. Think of it more like the tribal regions of the -stans: China is metaphorically ready to do some honor killing over this in a way we can't grok.
Please, can we ditch the outdated stereotypes? The Chinese govt uses the parallel tropes to the US ("we've suffered under years of foreign domination" "Here we're on an anti-corruption campaign so you don't have to suffer under unnecessary taxes" etc. And funding local SoEs to keep the jobs flowing).
Is make America Great Again any different? "Other countries are laughing at us." "We never win any more""We're going to bring back coal"
I just picked MAGA because it was a recent successful platform. But consider dispassionately: 15 years ago a small bunch of bandits killed 3000 people and cause a few billion in property damage. IN return the US has spent trillions killing people who had nothing to do with it in order to to restore its honor. Movies from Rambo to Shooter to anything by Chuck Norris are simply ways to pander to loss of face.
Of course there are differences between the two but let's stick to facts.
It's not an outdated stereotype. There are fundamental differences between eastern and western cultures. Individualistic vs collectivist, guilt based vs shame based.
The very fact that English has the expression "Lose Face" is because it was translated from Chinese and imported into the language in the 19th century[0].
That's really my point in those examples: Rambo and Shooter have an explicit story that ties to a particular individualistic-in-group-context narrative, but they also rest upon an underlying group identification and sense of group shame. Shooter is interesting in that I don't feel race plays any role in the group, except through the use of an "outside mercenary"
My in-laws are Vietnamese-Chinese so I'm painfully aware of how upsetting a perceived loss of face can be.
I would say, though, that there's a big difference between Hawai'i and the Phillipines. The latter is a treaty partner of the US but that's still something less than being territory. (Of course many Hawai'ian people would rather go back to being a sovereign nation but I don't want to veer far off topic.)
All this talk about "China/America/Russia"'s backyard makes me feel like we are returning to the days of feuding empires where the little countries don't matter. I guess big countries deserve big backyards and there's no such thing as Vietnam's backyard, or Mexico's backyard, or Sweden's backyard etc.
We are; it's very clear that the world is tilting back towards power politics rather than multilateralism and cooperation.
Actually, Vietnam has been asserting its territorial rights in an increasingly sour dispute with China - but it's not reported on as much, because Vietnam is a smaller country. All sovereign countries are equal in some sense as being distinct entities whose existence is recognized by each other, which is a fine principle. but in terms of economic and military affairs size matters and thus the disposition of the largest countries captures most of the attention.
Think of the world like a zoo, all the different enclosures let you see a wide variety of animals. In nature, some of these animals share the ecosystem with each, others would never meet, such as kangaroos and camels. Now, if you opened all the enclosures and just let the animals go free inside the zoo, it's safe to predict that the elephants, rhinoceros, lions, and tigers will will shape things more (at the outset; over generations in a sufficiently large zoo results may vary) than coyotes, llamas, zebra, and camels. All the animals I've mentioned are optimized for different roles in different environments but some are better equipped to handle confrontation than others. I use the analogy of the zoo because it's small, like the planet as communications and transport technology have reduced epic journeys to a logistical operation. We're effectively walled in with much less psychic and transitional distance between us than there used to be.
> it's very clear that the world is tilting back towards power politics rather than multilateralism and cooperation.
We never had multilateralism and cooperation. It seemed that way to the US, in the narrow window between the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of China and Putin. The world seems very cooperative when you're the only superpower standing. We're not seeing a fundamental change in the nature of global politics, just the diminishing power of the US.
Very true. You can't have multilateralism and cooperation when no one else is even on your level. Its like cooperating on a software project where only one person knows anything about programming; its very one sided. We are simply seeing the effect of 12 Trillion in debt to the Chinese leading to huge growth for their economy. Russia is still 1/15th the GDP of the US and desperately needs reduced sanctions and for the price of oil to increase. That is why they were happy about Rex Tillerson being SOS.
But do they matter on the world sphere where the playground is dominated by a few players with nukes, navies, and large-enough domestic economies to be able to enact sanctions?
I come from a small country. There's a few in Europe, known for good wines or thermal baths or scenic sights or ethnic foods, but their continued existence is only guaranteed by their membership in a mutual defense pact. Those who aren't part of such an arrangement are out of luck -- "international outrage" does not protect sovereignty, as we have seen time and time again.
Right now, there's little need to conquer territory when you can just make everyone reliant on your for technology (USA), rare earth minerals (China), or natural gas (Russia). But as resources get more scarce, what is Latvia to do? Hungary? The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia? With their cash flowing to foreign powers for technology, raw materials, and energy, rely on tourism, find some unique skill niche, or try to become a tax haven?
I totally agree with you that geopolitics matter, no matter how much one wishes we could just live in a world that isn't "might makes right".
But I'd still argue that using terms like "Russia's backyard" or "China's backyard" dangerously colors entire regions their color without regard for whether the countries in the region want to be associated with their nearby superpower.
Germany once had nearly all of Europe and Japan once had nearly all of Asia. Couldn't one say at the time the U.K. was in Germany's backyard and China in Japan's?
You're not wrong, but the increasingly imperialist tone of public discourse is a reflection of reality as well as a driver of it. My basic read of the world situation is that financialization and globalization have brought a tremendous increase in economic capability but also created massive internal political stresses within many countries - not least the USA - through the abruptness of the disruption.
Historically, countries often deal with internal strife by going to war with someone else, and it's probably been this way since the first cell dealt with an uncomfortable pH balance by squirting caustic goo at a neighboring cell. Almost nobody wants a full-on nuclear exchange but I think some sort of world war is inevitable because peaceful competition has created a lot of losers as well as winners, in both psychic and economic terms. Once about 10% of a population is sufficiently pissed off, strife is inevitable and the only question that remains is how it will manifest..
It's hard to propagandize people who are content since they have little incentive to alter their disposition. Of course the populace is propagandized, but you're talking as if they're incapable of having a preference over their own economic situation, which is absurd. People feel sad and angry when their life gets worse, and propagandists can channel such emotions. Angry people are naturally easier to motivate than happy ones, because they want something to change whereas happy people don't. (Obviously I'm phrasing things a bit loosely for the sake of brevity here.)
If this had occurred within Chinese waters, I might be inclined to agree with you. However, this occurred in International waters, and your government had no right to steal the vehicle.
Unfortunately being right is of small consultation if the situation is plunged into economic, diplomatic and military disaster by an ill-informed tweeting leader.
It is very clear that the US is trying to spy on China. I don't blame China for taking the drones. If Russia sends drones to Hawaii, the US will take them too.
I don't think that's clear at all. This drone was in International waters, not Chinese waters, and it sounds like this device was not capturing any actionable intelligence but data on how sound travels through water.
Well, they needed both drones to locate the source of any sounds detected in the water. With only one drone, their tests can determine what sounds were made (and maybe some general vicinity), but not as accurately from where.
The Chinese already surprised a US carrier fleet by deploying a submarine fleet that "ambushed" a carrier when one of their subs surfaced in kill range to the carrier, undetected.
Not necessarily astroturfing but high quality topics are easily swept from the front page or the replies turn into an endless slop of loony-spam by people who's ideology is threatened.
"[USNS] Bowditch had stopped in the water to pick up two underwater drones. At that point a Chinese naval ship that had been shadowing the Bowditch put a small boat into the water. That small boat came up alongside and the Chinese crew took one of the drones."
It's pretty likely this is a shove-back for Trump aggravating China over Taiwan.
The mechanics of international one-upmanship are fascinating, it's like watching two big guys doing everything short of actually getting into a bar fight (hopefully), mixed with a prank war.
Less likely about Trump, and more likely about the 'freedom of navigation' exercises the U.S. has been conducting in the same general area - something which these sailors would be acutely aware of, and which they may well feel the desire to 'shove-back' on. Not to say it can't be both.
I really doubt that such on-the-spot adventurism is tolerated in the Chinese Navy. against a commercial ship this could be plausible but against a navy vessel belonging to another country? If you were the captain of a Chinese Navy ship, would you want to be summoned to Beijing to explain why President Xi had unexpectedly received a nastygram from Washington?
Perhaps you are right and I'm misinterpreting early versions of the story, but my impression is that the Chinese military values conformity and command structures rather than spontaneity and initiative. Centralization and respect for hierarchy are hallmarks of Chinese culture.
I had to giggle at the bit in the story where the US ship sent a signal to complain as the Chinese one sailed off and the Chinese acknowledged receipt but didn't reply. Naval protocol is a funny thing; the sea is bigger than any country and it's not hard to picture the personnel on both ships being polite and professional to each other even as an act of piracy took place, because it was directed from elsewhere. It's a bit like professional diplomats delivering notices of a state of war and then shaking hands as they bid each other farewell.
> Although it's unclear what the motivation was for the Chinese, the seizing of the drone comes on the heels of other provocative incidents that have happened since President-elect Donald Trump received a congratulatory call with Taiwan's President, a violation of the US's agreement with China's "One China policy". China publicly voiced their disapproval of that incident and contacted the White House at the time.
It's been something of a trope on the (alt)right to rip on CNN. It's up there with NYT and WaPo in terms of ire drawn.
Specifically, the news clip of a CNN anchor saying its illegal to read WikiLeaks is often held up as some trump card that CNN is has lost 100% credibility on everything.
Counterpoint: the continued employment of Wolf Blitzer, The Worst News Anchor In Human History.
All joking aside, CNN is basically TV clickbait, and they're consistently terrible at actual journalism. Their news coverage is basically talking heads that read out the wire service updates for you.
I may disagree with the editorial bent of some of the other news outlets but at least they're competent, provide some context of what a story means, etc. That's really the value-add in journalism versus just having AP Wire provide an RSS feed.
US media is pretty much trash in general though, BBC and Al Jazeera English are where it's at (just don't look to AJE for any hard-hitting coverage of Qatari issues, they won't touch them). Not Al Jazeera America though, they were always terrible compared to AJE's coverage.
The best way to I've found to collapse this type of deflection, without angering the person, is just to ask them which part of the article in question is biased and wrong, because it causes them to start thinking critically about the information whereas before they weren't even considering it.
i.e. Did China really not say that they captured a submersible drone? Is CNN making up information about what China is saying now? etc.
Yes, it is editorializing. It's also clearly prefixed as such to distinguish it from factual data. It's a valid and possible conclusion as to the motivations for China's actions, given their prior statements and lack of statements regarding this incident.
Would the article be better for leaving out any international political context? I think most people would agree that international politics are at play here, and a good news organization will attempt to help with what might be happening so the layman might understand. You might not agree with their assessment (you haven't actually stated whether you think Trump's statements played any part), but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there.
I just looked up the breitbart coverage (two articles?[1][2]) of this story, and to my eyes, it seems a bit odd that it doesn't include any context as to possible reasons why. RT[3] actually has a fairly fleshed out article[3], and implies a different reasoning, which is that there's posturing over the waters there specifically. It was published a few hours after the other ones though. NBC[4] seems the most balanced so far. It mentions Trump, but as just one of a few tense exchanges, points out it's not a major thing, it's just unprofessional, and that it actually wasn't that close to the disputed area. It's also only 20 minutes old, apparently.
Different outlets and even just article authors will have different takes on the news. This may change over time as stories develop. It's not out of place to look for what you think is relevant and include it in the article, as long as items that are facts are presented as such and sourced, and items that are opinion are presented accordingly as well.
Well, I will fully admit that's not what I expected or want to see in a credible paper, but it in itself does not actually affect the credibility. It's purely a flavor and opinion piece, and is not actually stating any facts.
It does make you wonder about the credibility, but without anything concrete to point to where they were wrong, I would just hold it up as a mistake and in poor taste.
Giving credence to whether or not a black hole was the cause of MH370 disappearing (bonus points: its crazy only because 'a small black hole would suck in our entire universe', according to the expert):
Comparing CNN to the New York Times or Washington Post is ridiculous. No matter how much bias those publications might have, at least they don't have just generally -bad- reporting. I actually encourage anyone to watch an entire day of CNN to see if you can even bear it.
What I'm saying is that there's a difference between credible and good. It's entirely possible to believe CNN will deliver facts credibly but their editorializing will be crap. A source is credible when you can trust that the facts they are presenting are checked and correct, and their opinions are at least plausible. That's doesn't seem like a high standard, but unfortunately some sources are having a hard time meeting it. It's just not the major ones having that problem, as has been insinuated. I've debunked more than a few alt-right news blogs stories in the last few months, and the difference is stark. Opinions in one blog reported as fact in another. Completely reading numbers in a spreadsheet wrong when presenting a summary and assessment (that or it was purposefully misrepresented). Basic facts completely wrong.
It's fine to point out that CNN is crap, and their editorializing sucks. But let's not go so far as to say they aren't credible without real evidence, because that puts them on same field as some of these other "news" sites, and there's still a world of difference between them.
> Comparing CNN to the New York Times or Washington Post is ridiculous.
I didn't do that. Perhaps you are mixing up a different thread with this one?
> Giving credence to whether or not a black hole was the cause of MH370 disappearing
I don't think that's what they were doing. They used a rhetoric of acceptance to bring up the subject so it could be addressed. If people are bring up crap theories online, addressing them quickly and definitively in the negative is just what I think they should have done. Sure, she overreached on the black-hole thing, but I think the segment served a purpose. It just wasn't aimed at you or me.
Second: how, exactly, would that work? For the millionth time you cannot sell without a buyer. So if China is "dumping", someone else is buying. Or do you think they're just lighting these bonds on fire? Guess who wins in that scenario. Hint: not China.
You know, there's so much controversy about "fake news" lately, but the reality is that people will seek out the stories that fit their narrative, rather than looking at the data. Nobody to blame but ourselves.
This is well-reported in The Economist, Bloomberg, WSJ. The Chinese government is shoring up its currency due to capital injections in its SOEs and banks.
This isn't like the mid-1990s dump of the Rupiah; there isn't a malicious aspect to it. If it somehow were malicious, it would be pathetic because the U.S. dollar has increased in value over that time period.
Oct 2015 - Oct 2016 they've reduced their total holdings by ~139 billion. This could have been through either outright selling, or just letting them mature and not reinvesting, or some combination.
Either way that doesn't really look like dumping and is practically pocket change in the scheme of US debt.
Reminds of that time when the US sent a sub to tap a Soviet underwater communication cable off the cost of the then Soviet Union. That was brazen, and bad. It was the kind of stuff that leads to war.
What the Chinese just did is just as bad, and could lead to war.
We should expect little games like this, as it reveals China's technical inferiority - otherwise, why steal something if you already have something better?
I'm more interested in their clain on Taiwan -- is it the island (Formosa) or its inhabitants (the descendants of Kai-shek) that they claim? Claiming the island at least has a logic that one can support or deny.
Claiming the inhabitants, well then every country with an ethnic Chinese population - e.g. Indochina, San Francisco -- might well be at risk.
Curious nautical legal question: How does recovery (salvage / claims) work for an unmanned drone in international waters -- couldn't you draw analogies to any 'ole piece of salvageable junk? In which case, couldn't anyone lay claim to it...?
Going forward this will be a critical test of US status in the region and set a precedent for the incoming administration on dealing with China.
So far, the US has been unwilling to engage China directly, only using proxy countries to apply pressure, ex. THAAD. It has been highly effective and unless China takes direct action that harms American naval & airforce assets, it's unwilling to engage in a downright skirmish that results in economic loss.
Following that previous logic, China is very careful about not kicking the honet's nest because it would be it's end. The Chinese leadership must know fully well that they cannot match the US militarily. Also given Xi's failing grades on foreign diplomacy, it's suffice to conclude that these grandiose rhetorics are entirely aimed at it's own population, who are reaching a boiling point that will ultimately put into uncertainty the survivability of Xi's powerbase and the entire party itself. Xi made too many enemies so he's looking for ways to survive by fighting fire with fire and creating more enemies from within. An internal dialogue fueling crisis with the US is a perfect propaganda tool and the fear of war, the fear of losing your properties, belongings, material possessions you've spent time on...history has shown is highly effective in controlling the populace.
I think this viewpoint unrealistically diminishes the Chinese position.
1. Beating the U.S. militarily in a conventional war is completely unnecessary. The overt Chinese military goal is to defend the nine-dash line and little more. Their anti-ship and anti-air missiles more than accomplish this. Several U.S. Navy admirals have stated on record that the U.S. doesn't have a mitigation for that defense.
2. The Chinese Communist Party's survival depends far more on economic factors than foreign affairs/international issues. According to various Western reports in China (The Economist, NPR, BBC), most of the populous is uninterested in the fact there is no credible opposition. Most of the population is interested in exploiting new opportunities/safeguarding their wealth. I acknowledge that Western sources could be missing a lot.
3. The Chinese diplomatic efforts are likely to effectively exploit the imminent U.S. pivot to a more isolationist posture. The TPP (despite its many warts, including unconscionable IP/legal rules) was the primary vehicle for countering Chinese trade efforts. I think we can expect to see more effective diplomacy in the realm of trade from China in the coming years. Already inroads are being made in the Philippines.
> Following that previous logic, China is very careful about not kicking the honet's nest because it would be it's end
The US would win a conventional war but it would be bloody and expensive in both life and material.
Neither side wants that, China wants to get to a point where it's strong enough that fighting the US would be incredibly expensive and the US wants to maintain a position where it's strong enough to deter China from doing whatever China wants to do, it's a strange world when the US's largest trading partner is in a cold war style stand off.
It's tough to say who will win. After all, the Soviet Union pretty much won WW2 with an enormous human sacrifice as much as the US likes to downplay it.
I agree two sides will do everything possible to avoid direct conflict just like the Cold War.
It depends on what the condition is for "win", the US couldn't likely invade and hold China but end China as a military threat absolutely, it would be a war of attrition but the US could wipe out the Chinese military and most of their industrial capacity (a lot of it is on the coast after all).
The US has an ocean between them and China. US power projection would be tested and probably ultimately fail due to unbelievable expense of such a war but China would not win unless you call not losing a win. Soviet Union could take their land army straight to Germany but China has no way to project power to US.
> US power projection would be tested and probably ultimately fail due to unbelievable expense
I think you're wrong here. The US has been investing in power projection for 80 some odd years now, and is leaps and bounds ahead of any other nation. Yes it would be expensive...but we've been paying a premium for quite a long time to have this capability. Additionally, the supply chain is drastically shortened because of the sheer number of US or allied bases in the area - Japan, South Korea, the Philippines (though that one has become a bit questionable).
The US has never entered into a conventional war with another power close to their own. It is a 100% uncertainty if the US would win, even with the US' more expensive wartoys that are still unproven.
Just a cursory glance at US' military history the past century reveals the US has only engaged against powers that were greatly diminished (European Theater, Russia, JP), or in and against countries in regions that were relatively far less equipped and primitive in weaponry (Asia, Africa, Middle East, etc).
There's no reason for the US to bring the conflict to the military arena. China's economy is heavily dependent on the US and Europe. The average Zhang San is not going to appreciate losing his job and the government knows it.
And this incident in particular happened 100 miles off the western coast of the Philippines, where the US has a sanctioned naval base. That's far closer to the Phillipines than anywhere else, even the disputed Spratly Islands.
This is one interpretation of a widely disputed issue.
Many people like to underwrite this opinion with the Hague Tribunal findings, but unfortunately UNCLOS itself (article 299) states that it has no authority to decide territorial cases.
In any case, the claims to the islands in the South China Sea are hardly unilateral, as the United States recognized many of them including the Paracels and Scarborough during the Potsdam Declaration, Cairo Declaration, San Fransisco Treaty and others (at the time motivated to punish the imperial Japanese at the end of WWII).
Hell the Cairo Declaration even declared Manchuria and Taiwan as owned by China.
It's funny what the American media bubble does to history.
Sure. During WWII the Japanese occupied Pacific Islands including the Paracels and Spratlys.
At the time it came to resolve the war, Japan was forced to remove itself from various occupied areas including but not limited to Korea, China, and Pacific Islands.
For instance in the Cairo Declaration it was stated that:
"Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China. Japan will also be expelled from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed. The aforesaid three great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are determined that in due course Korea shall become free and independent."
Note that here the United States, Britain and China together recognized Manchuria, Taiwan and the islands off of Taiwan as Chinese. Japan would need to extricate itself from Korea.
The Qing Dynasty, before the war, had explored and occupied the Paracels and the Spratlys - to a minimal degree, since it had never become a great naval power. Indeed, there are a number of instances of Vietnam and China 'trading' the Paracels back and forth to protect their ownership during the occupation of French Indochina.
These islands had also been occupied by imperial Japan (such islands are useful in naval warfare), who was forced to remove itself. The Potsdam Declaration reads "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku and such minor islands as we determine." These islands were very limited indeed, did not include the Paracels/Spratlys and it should be noted that they do not include the Kurils (something today that the Americans would like to revise history on).
Similarly, section (f) of article 2 of the Potsdam Treaty reads of Japan: "Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Spratly Islands and to the Paracel Islands."
What we have is a situation where the Philippines never had administration or territorial claims to these islands and where the Qing Dynasty had. In the post-war period, China was not only weak, but could not spend much patrolling the South China Sea - and focused primarily on it's Western Front during the Cold War.
Today, China is trying to build infrastructure, shipping routes and naval security in this area. This is important to China because of its historical vulnerability to naval embargo, through the Strait of Malacca and elsewhere.
The United States had hoped, because of weak territorial enforcement during the postwar period, to make an issue over the ownership of the islands and waters as part of a geopolitical effort to limit the expansion of Chinese influence in an area historically militarily dominated by US projection (it's own National Security concerns pertaining to its continued naval access to potential adversaries and compeditors).
The bulwark of that effort was an attempt to build an Asian consensus, centered around the Philippines (an important US ally and prior colony). However, the effort failed, with states in Asia fracturing in opinion and not willing to commit themselves to a United States led effort to persist its power projection in that way.
This is still evolving of course, but the future looks rather dim with the Philippines (the keystone of the project) backing away.
> Note that here the United States, Britain and China together recognized Manchuria, Taiwan and the islands off of Taiwan as Chinese. Japan would need to extricate itself from Korea.
Doesn't this ignore a long-running civil war around the same time that has some relevance to Taiwan's situation? Namely, which Chinese government was Japan giving Taiwan back too?
Yes absolutely the Taiwanese situation is complicated by inter-Chinese conflict.
The official US position (shared by most of the world) is that Taiwan is Chinese territory. The settlement on that issue is that Taiwan will be fully and formally enveloped into the mainland, along with Hong Kong, the 2040s (IIRC). The US (and most of the world) does not recognize Taiwan as an independent sovereignty. Think Puerto Rico.
Yes, but my point was that this wasn't all some simple thing going back to a post-WWII treaty that was now being complicated by a US imperialist media bubble. The current official position came about decades later and is additionally complicated by the unofficial relations between the US and the two being quite different.
On a completely not-realpolitik-based personal side of things, having spent some time in all three of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, a forced eventual unification feels rather sad if it comes with the greater globalized monoculture that the mainland currently has.
All treaties, settlements and borders are subject to be changed. It's simply a fact.
It is entirely possible that, in a war or as a settlement, or under pressure, or by sale/trade, or by volunteer Russia will give the Kurils to Japan, or the United States will revise its position on Taiwan or Hong Kong (you've already see a Trump Administration send the signal he's willing to do this).
These relations are complicated, as various decisions made by different sovereignties will be replied to, can spoil relationships, can spoil trust, etc.
A nation can also ruin its reputation by being 'too flippant' in recognizing territory until its not convenient to do so any more. There's a giant fuzzy 'you-have-to-be-able-to-tell-the-future' calculus that is done in simulating various choices on how to proceed with sovereign decisions, as effects can be quite wide ranging.
America flipping its opinion on the sovereignty of the former British colony Hong Kong or on the civil war safehaven Taiwan, would represent a huge and damaging departure in relations with China. The United States may do such a thing, but would only do it if the 'realpolitik' calculus allowed it to risk - or wanted it to aggress - a war.
There's never a simple thing in geopolitics. We can only look to history, to policies and treaties and to potential outcomes to explain and predict. The United States breaking with long standing treaties would be huge news in this regard.
> There's never a simple thing in geopolitics. We can only look to history, to policies and treaties and to potential outcomes to explain and predict.
So doesn't this bring us to "it's news that China has started treating these waters differently" for objective reasons vs it only being an "American media bubble" thing?
China is treating these waters differently today for National Security reasons, and because of a unique period of history in which Chinese growth and infrastructure development has skyrocketed (China has been successfully industrializing into a modern economy). I had said: "Today, China is trying to build infrastructure, shipping routes and naval security in this area. This is important to China because of its historical vulnerability to naval embargo, through the Strait of Malacca and elsewhere."
The American media bubble is the narrative that China is being aggressive, that China is being unilateral, that China has no claims (especially vis a vis Philippines), that there is a unanimous interpretation in Asia, etc.
The media bubble in this regard isn't "something has changed" but "this is what's changed and this is what's going on."
It's a nice story about good versus evil and American freedom, sure, but that's only good for headlines and public consumption. It's not what is going to fill the history books.
> The official US position (shared by most of the world) is that Taiwan is Chinese territory.
Citation? It helps to be clear when you use "Chinese" in this context. It is certainly not the US position that Taiwan is PRC territory. They are deliberately ambiguous on this.
> The settlement on that issue is that Taiwan will be fully and formally enveloped into the mainland, along with Hong Kong, the 2040s (IIRC).
First I've heard of this settlement. Again, citations?
> The US (and most of the world) does not recognize Taiwan as an independent sovereignty. Think Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico does is not de jure independent and does not claim to be. Completely different. The ROC is de facto independent.
The termination of the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty ("SAMSG") and the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act ("TRA"). In the "SAMDT" it was the policy of the United States that the Republic of China (ROC - Taiwan) was the sole legitimate sovereignty of mainland China.
President Carter terminated SAMDT, passing instead the TRA. The Taiwan Relations Act promotes a "One China Policy" - that of there being only one China. Under this policy, the US government recognizes the PRC (mainland) government, and no longer recognizes Taiwan (ROC) as a sovereignty. In this, there is no formal recognition, state-to-state diplomacy at high levels, present embassy, etc. The TRA makes provisions for the defense of the island in the case of military activity from the mainland. The TRA has been consistently reaffirmed by the United States government for 40 years.
> The settlement on that issue is that Taiwan will be fully and formally enveloped into the mainland, along with Hong Kong, the 2040s.
I have overspoken and confused the Hong Kong case with the Taiwan case. To be very clear: I am and was wrong about the timeline on a formal date for the mainland to envelop Taiwan.
The "Basic Law" of the Constitution of Hong Kong that establishes it as a separate autonomous region expires in (I had to look this up) 1947. This arrangement had been agreed to by the British and the mainland Chinese government, with the understanding the independence would cede after this time.
I had been under the impression that Taiwan had a similar provision in their constitution. However, looking this up I found that it is not the case. ROC and PRC both agree that there is "One China" as does the United States, but there remains disagreement about where the sovereignty resides. A good example of this is that ROC sided entirely with PRC with regard to the South China Sea and the international disputes and findings.
There does not appear to be a deadline on the federalization of the relationship, and I sincerely apologize that I stated this incorrectly.
Now, I do swear to have heard US diplomats and academics discussing the Hong Kong and Taiwan timeframe as a single event: "One Country, Three Systems." I have nothing formal or official to point to in this regard.
> Think Puerto Rico
There are many differences between the two cases and it was not intended to to be taken beyond the most immediate analogy. The US, as by the TRA, does not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan as an independent sovereignty. I was trying to come up with something American readers might be able to compare that to. PR probably came to mind because it too is an island, and it too is not recognized as a sovereign state. Of course the analogy is not perfect and I would never claim it is.
Thank you for clarifying that to other readers.
There is not a strong constituency of Puerto Rico that claims independent sovereignty. I don't know if they are actively seeking political representation of any sort (as a US state?). There isn't actually much news/information (that I get anyway) about the political climate on PR.
> Now, I do swear to have heard US diplomats and academics discussing the Hong Kong and Taiwan timeframe as a single event: "One Country, Three Systems." I have nothing formal or official to point to in this regard.
It's definitely something people talk about sometimes as a potential (or for some even predicted) outcome, but it's mostly speculative with little firm basis in general, and even less in terms of any specific time frame.
The US has only ever "acknowledged" that the PRC considers Taiwan a part of its territory. The fact that diplomatic recognition has switched to the PRC does not imply that the US believes Taiwan is part of the PRC. It's deliberately ambiguous on all of this.
It is their purpose that Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China.
And Formosa and the Pescadores are today governed by the by the Republic of China, at least.
It seems that the Vietnamese media bubble does the same, then. As does the Philippine media bubble, the Malay media bubble, the Brunei media bubble, and everyone else in the region who has just watched China annex the ocean off their shore.
This is a mischaracterization of the Vietnamese press, Malay press, Philippine press, etc. I've seen plenty of articles criticizing the Philippine and US behavior in the South China Sea from these countries, and indeed the Philippines has for the most part stopped pressing their claim.
Mostly, Japan and the United States don't want it to happen. You'll see their bubble selectively translate and report on Thai, Vietnamese, etc press. I'm sorry you seem to be under the impression there's such a uniform voice.
The United States had hoped to build a uniform front and accusation against China, with the Philippines at the center.
That effort failed. And it's getting to be nearly a year.
In any case, you seem to take exception with the 'bubble accusation'. We can talk about that, if you like, but I would be interested in talking about the various declarations and treaties at the end of WWII.
I'm sorry you seem to be under the impression there's such a uniform voice.
I think you're lying. I don't think you're sorry. I think this is childish, passive-aggressive bullshit from someone who knows how to act like an adult but somehow can't resist acting like a child. Here's how a grown man states what you were trying to say; "There's not such a uniform voice as you think across the different nations you mentioned." For God's sake, grow up. You seem to have some actual facts to present, but a childish tone undermines everything.
Here is a source, dated in the May of this year, in which policy wonks (Julian Ku, Fravel, Malcohm Cook) discuss the situation in the South China Sea and United States Freedom of Navigation Operations ("FONOPs").
This isn't an outlier in reporting on the situation in the South China Sea: reporting - and the diplomacy - emphasizes the need for the United States to find allies and to build a consensus of Asian countries.
The response from those would-be-allied Asian countries, the policy wonks discuss, has been ambivilent at best. They link to an article in which the Indonesian government criticizes the US for power projection and calls on the US and China to 'restrain themselves'. The Indonesian response in this regard was not an outlier.
Much of the advice to US diplomats was that the FONOPs needed to be changed because the aggressive nature of the military projection undercut the narrative that China was the bully. Advice on changing the operations included doing them silently without much public coverage, or trying to build a coalition so that the US wouldn't 'sail alone'. (The US was unable to build such a coalition.)
There's a lot to say in this regard.
I think your comment(s) are highly constructive, I take seriously what you say, and have been upvoting them.
The power calculus isn't all that different from the one that requires American dominance at sea, worldwide. In both cases, a power (one global, one local) is asserting control over strategic assets and ultimately arguing that the arrangement promotes stability and is better in the long run for the little fishies involved.
Who says its 'international waters'? The Western created UN shackle? Fact is America is operating thousands of miles away from its territory. The only reason to do that is hostility and Imperialism.
Agreed, why is the U.S. standing in the way of righteous Chinese Navy sailors from claiming their birthright territorial waters of the Philippines, Vietnam, Korea, and Chinese Taipei (Taiwan is a fiction spun by pig-dog imperialist American spies).
The drones were clearly, undisputedly trying to spy on China. That is a blatantly provocative move. If Russia sends drones near the coast of new york city in the international waters, do you think the US will open arms and welcome them?
Russia and the U.S. are members of the Open Skies treaty, meaning we already allow unarmed observation over each other's land as part of building confidence with each other.
When you say right off the coast you mean hundreds of miles from the mainland coast? I think the US is fine with foreign vessels operating in international waters.
Look, this sort of thing (observing each other from a safe distance) takes place all the time. We're fine with the Chinese ship shadowing the US one, watching us watching them, and we do the same thing in reverse. That's how naval powers have carried on business for centuries. It's like poker players looking at how many chips their opponents have on the table in order to guess at their strategy on the next hand. You can lok all you want, but you can't reach over and help yourself to one of the other players' chips.
Perhaps, but you should identify what you consider to be false or propagandistic about it, otherwise you are just trying to cause confusion rather than get at the truth, and that's rude to the other people here.
As they say on examination papers: give reasons for your answer.
"We call upon China to return our [unmanned underwater vehicle] immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under international law," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook responded.
When CNN says "oceanographic research", what they actually mean is building a sonar ray caustics model of the environment, because sound bends just like light does when the medium transmission speed changes, and the speed of sound in water changes noticably with depth,salinity,temperature.
When CNN says "unclear motivation", what they mean is that the motivation is actually pretty clear. China doesn't like that the US is building underwater surveillance infrastructure in their backyard.