reuters.com
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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.

  • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.netEnglish
    363·
    5 hours ago

    The CPC never controlled Taiwan so it’s inaccurate to say it was stripped from them.

    US being imperialistic doesn’t make encirclement and threats towards an autonomous island any less imperialistic. That’s just whataboutism.

    If the CPC only cared about the security of their coastline then this aggressive military strategy makes little sense because it’s only likely to increase the risk of conflict. Pursuing peace and closer ties with Taiwan would disarm the whole reason they have for working with the US. But of course that would require the CPC to respect their autonomy, which imperialists will never do.

    • freagle@lemmy.mlEnglish
      35·
      2 hours ago

      Political parties don’t control territory. Nation states do. The island of Taiwan is a province of the nation state of China - it was ceded to the Japanese imperialist who invaded China and took Taiwan from China making it part of Japan (not part of a specific party in Japan) and then the nation state of China, collaboratively amongst its political factions, liberated the island and restored it as territory of the nation state of China.

      This talking point about the CPC never owning it is a category error and you would never imagine making such claims about Labor or Conservatives owning this or that part of England, or Texas being the rightful property of Republicans or New York being the rightful property of Democrats. This use of language is double speak.

      As for defending against US aggression being whataboutism, that’s not even close to being n accurate use of the phrase. For example, when Russia stationed nuclear weapons in Cuba, the US threatened total nuclear annihilation because it was threatened by what was a consensual agreement between two independent nations. The US making it very clear that they were going to bring their military might to Asia, while expanding their drone war and demolishing a half dozen countries is a far greater threat than the USSR ever was to the USA, but for some reason you bootlickers want to pretend that the US moving 2/3rds of their naval assets to the Pacific theater and constantly writing strategic assessments about whether the US could win a nuclear war if it encircled its opponents with sufficient offensive and defensive capabilities. The US’s interest in Taiwan is nothing more than as an unsinkable aircraft carrier that produces computer chips (which, btw it has been trying desperately to bring into the US so that it can use Taiwan exclusively as a war zone).

      Whataboutism would be saying that China is allowed to kill 500K Taiwanese children because the US killed 500K Iraqi children. Realpolitik is recognizing that China has a requirement to be hyper vigilant regarding everything on its coastline and nearby waterways and islands because the US and UK have been abundantly clear that they are not happy that China has recovered from the Opium War and the subjugation that followed and that the imperialists have no problem with killing people anywhere in the world if it means advancing the interests of their ruling class.