this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
207 points (99.1% liked)

World News

38969 readers
2583 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Despite Chinese protests about the use of the waterway — which it claims jurisdiction over — German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has insisted that the ships are in international waters.

A German warship and an accompanying navy vessel entered the Taiwan Strait on Friday, despite protests from China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan and asserts influence over the body of water.

"International waters are international waters," said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Friday at a press conference with his Lithuanian counterpart Laurynas Kasciunas.

"It's the shortest route and, given the weather conditions, the safest, so we're going through."

...

The use of the strait angers Beijing, but it is officially an international waterway and major trade route through which around half of global container ships pass.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

I'm using the term "allowed" in the sense of "China agreed to this and put it in its own law". Freedom of navigations exercises are a way to tell a country "Do what you promised, we are willing to fight you about it if you don't". Since China has not actually stopped this exercise, it is following the treaty despite all its complaints. Even America follows the treaty, despite having not signed it.

Being signatories to a treaty is not decisive if no one follows the treaty.

Yeah, this is true. The treaty is just the specific set of terms (almost) everyone agreed to and continues to follow. Since everyone almost everyone agreed to it and everyome does follow it, it's an easy point of reference to get international cooperation on. I'm sure the reaction would be quite different if China had fired on this ship vs if it had done so in a world with no agreements on territorial waters and innocent passage. In the latter case, a lot of countries would probably just tell Germany "well why did you sail a gunship where you weren't supposed to?"