this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
88 points (94.0% liked)

World News

39110 readers
2377 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
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Isn't there a huge incentive for failing leaders to start wars? A common enemy from the outside unites the parties on the inside, the critics have to step aside - a political move since forever, and still working perfectly, see Netanjahu as the newest addition to the list.

[–] Varyk 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It can work well, but there's no guarantee everything goes your way. Russia has zero goodwill, political presence or military threat left and is probably going to end up a Chinese puppet, Israel has lost a LOT of goodwill and moral clout even in the face of what they saw as a very good excuse to ramp up their colonization of Palestine.

You can maybe gain some internal goodwill and galvanization by invading the "other", but the cumulative and perpetual risks are also huge, and all China has to do is look north to see what happens when a country invades someone the US is willing to support military.

And right now like never before, the US wants Taiwan.

China is having trouble holding its own provinces together as it is.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Good point, really, thanks for your answer - but that didn't stop Putin and Netanjahu, didn't it? Pretty sure Xi has more to consider and to lose but all that consideration may go out the window as soon as something destabilises his power. And the provinves may even be the tipping point and not the brake of such changes.

Don't know much about control of power in China and hope they can keep it together. China losing it would be really bad, not only because of US but also because India and the whole of Asia already is tipping to a more chaotic side, too.

[–] Varyk 18 points 1 year ago

Quick addendum: Putin already invaded Ukraine and annexed part of it in 2014 without consequence, so he probably thought he had a free pass, and the IDF has been bombing and colonizing Palestine for decades with overwhelming global thumbs up, so they probably thought another technically retaliatory act of devastation would be fine this time too.

[–] Varyk 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can't depend on logic or past history when it comes to humans.

I'm simply agreeing with tsai that it would be a terribly disadvantageous time for China to invade Taiwan, probably the worst time since Taiwan became a country.

And while china has a lot of internal political strife, the ruling class is capitalizing so much by allowing the status quo of capitalist production and centralization and taking unearned credit for a naturally recovering economy that the risks vastly outweigh the benefits of taking Taiwan by force.

The CCP is making bank and engendering sorely needed domestic goodwill by leapfrogging industrial progress to invest directly into modern infrastructure, finance and technology.

China invading Taiwan would be like tossing a turkey you've been roasting for two and a half hours out the window to make room for a Rotisserie chicken being sold by a passing street vendor.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 2 points 1 year ago

They should make a plan to sort this out sensibly over a few years. What’s the worst that could happen?