I didn’t say they had exercised force, I said they’re likely planning the use of force to take over Taiwan, whether the people of Taiwan want that or not. I would regard that as imperialistic. I think it would be more humane to respect the wishes of Taiwan - if they want to join the PRC then okay, but if they don’t then perhaps that should be respected.
I don’t know for how long they may have planned it. But I think it’s likely that they would have created some sort of plans for an invasion of Taiwan, based on their statements where they say they don’t rule out force to take over Taiwan. From this article:
Peng Qing’en, a spokesperson for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, told a regular news conference in Beijing that peaceful “reunification” under the “one country, two systems” model is the fundamental approach to “resolving the Taiwan issue”.
“We are willing to create ample space for peaceful reunification and will spare no effort to pursue this prospect with the utmost sincerity,” he said.
“However, we absolutely will not renounce the use of force and reserve the option to take all necessary measures.”
Yeah I dunno, how does planning an invasion to expand your land make you imperial. I’m stumped. As for locking up Uyghurs, I didn’t say that’s imperialist behaviour, I said it’s behaviour that I don’t think is “left leaning”. I guess you could call it tyrannical behaviour.
Wanting to invade Taiwan, claiming all of the Spratly and Paracel islands. And as I said there is other behaviour which I don’t think is “left leaning”, such as locking up Uyghurs in camps.
I wouldn’t call an imperialist nation “left leaning”. To me it’s like when the Nazis called themselves socialists. But anyway I guess we will have different perspectives on this.
I don’t need to be a fed to have that view
If the PRC was leftist they probably wouldn’t lock up Uyghurs in camps, or threaten to invade Taiwan with military force.
Cope yourself. Lemmy.ml does not appear to represent leftism, but instead appears to represent imperialism done by countries who aren’t western.
Downvoting my post. Clearly the only person crying here is you.
Funny how Lemmy.ml doesn’t post anything which could reasonably be recognised as leftism, and instead just posts “western countries bad” garbage over and over and over again.
Yeah I think Ireland’s system is pretty good. They have the Taoiseach, the equivalent of our prime minister. Then they have a president who is mostly ceremonial.
Ah yes, British democracy. The bringer of Brexit, Boris Johnson.
Arguably though, if the UK was even more democratic, then those two phenomena may have turned out differently. E.g. Boris only won 43.6% of the votes in the 2019 election, which of course is a minority. If the UK had proportional representation then I guess we’d be more likely to see consensus-building leaders ruling the country. Germany has some degree of proportional representation and they have been led by coalitions between the two main blocs (centre-right Union and centre-left SPD) for much of the last 20 years.
With Brexit, maybe there should have been a second referendum to determine what sort of Brexit would be implemented, since that question was not asked in the first referendum. The UK could have taken a path similar to Norway or Iceland, being outside the EU, but still taking part in the single market.
I haven’t checked my account on here for a while but now I’ve seen your replies.
Maybe we will just have different views on the monarchy. If you like the monarchy then fair enough. I think I would prefer an elected official having command over the armed forces and police (which is surely already de facto the case) instead of a monarch. The elected official would probably be somewhat competent because they have had to win the backing of the British people in an election.
Reform UK is only supported by about a third of the electorate at the moment. More than any other single party, but if there was an election for a British head of state, and that election ended up being a choice between Farage and one other person, Farage could very well lose.
Also you said in another post that “President Farage could remove elections”. I think that if we have an elected head of state then they should only have similar powers to what the King has now. Parliament should still be sovereign.
I think one of the best aspects of the UK is political freedom. Perhaps I am a subject of the King (I don’t know if that’s legally true but it might be), but in any case, I can still say that I hope the UK will get rid of the monarchy and replace it with a democratically elected head of state.
Fair enough, but according to a couple of sites that Wikipedia refers to, Churchill originally didn’t know that the outward facing gesture was rude until he was told about it. If true then I guess his gesture was intended to mean “here is a V for victory” instead of “fuck off you lot” or “fuck the Germans”.
It depends on the context doesn’t it. Lots of people will fly the England flag or wear an England shirt during a football tournament, and all they mean by that is “I support the England team” without a further political meaning. But the meaning of the current flag-flying from lamp posts seems to essentially be “we don’t want immigrants in the UK” which can make the flags intimidating (which is probably the exact intention).
Here’s another example of context changing meaning. Churchill used to give a two-fingered salute (see picture below), and his intended meaning of that salute was that it was a “V” for “victory” in WW2. But of course these days, that same outwards two-fingered salute means “fuck off”. Context changes the meaning.
I hope the US doesn’t invade other countries. But I would say I can be wary of both the US and China at the same time.
Since we’re in a thread about Farage I feel obliged to post this
This reminds me of the hubbub surrounding Rishi Sunak’s Englishness and David Lammy’s Englishness.
Maybe anyone who lives or has lived in England could reasonably call themselves English. Just like if you live or have lived in Liverpool then you could call yourself a Liverpudlian, regardless of your ethnicity or anything else.
Well I can see things that are obviously true and you apparently can’t, so I guess I’m not as daft as you