xiao
Your worst still friendly friend
- 465 Posts
- 331 Comments
Totally disconnect from the reality of cyclists. This will endanger cyclists riding on rural roads.
Retour à the GazettE ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNDnOlNIXPk
187·3 days agoAnother car used as a weapon, but politicians will still turn a blind eye to it!
2·3 days agoTo clarify the “pro-China” stigma (Note that BeiJing-friendly is gentler)
Why Taiwan’s Main Opposition Party Can’t Shake Its Pro-China Stance
By Chieh Yen (January 18, 2023)
Chieh Yen is a research associate at Trust Taiwan, a policy-based NGO in Taiwan. He holds a master’s degree in International Politics from SOAS, University of London.
The Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese Nationalist Party, despite being the main opposition party in Taiwan and receiving around 38 percent of the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election, is widely regarded as “pro-China.” In an era in which authoritarian regimes are getting more aggressive, the China-friendly label has caused damage to the KMT’s reputation both at home and abroad. KMT leaders are well aware of this issue. Yet, no matter who is the party’s chairperson or presidential candidate, they have failed to get rid of this pro-China stigma. This dynamic has confused observers of East Asian politics, and it requires explanation for a better understanding of cross-strait relations. As with every other political party in the world, a wide spectrum of national identities exist within KMT, and all of them receive different levels of support from party members.
Generally, there are three categories.
The first group, led by chairperson Eric Chu, argues that engaging with the United States while maintaining a good relationship with China will make Taiwan safe. The difference between this KMT faction and President Tsai Ing-wen’s cross-strait policy is that Chu and believe sticking to the “1992 Consensus” is the “key” to communicating with Beijing – regardless of the fact that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has declared that the 1992 Consensus means “both sides of the Taiwan Straits belong to one China and will work together toward national reunification.” This stance on the cross-strait relationship is not acceptable to the bulk of voters from both the KMT and Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). KMT and other pan-Blue voters are of the opinion that Chu’s China policy is too similar to the DPP’s, while pro-Green supporters regard Chu and others as “giving up Taiwan’s sovereignty.” Thus, these leaders have received little support in almost every poll.
The second group in the KMT has a more pro-mainland stance, asserting that the KMT should keep its distance from the United States in order to not frustrate the Chinese Communist Party. They believe that diplomacy, rather than deterrence, is the way to keep the Taiwan Strait safe. To achieve that goal, proponents like former President Ma Ying-jeou insist the Taiwanese government should explicitly state that it agrees with the 1992 Consensus as the foundation for further communications and cooperation. This community within the KMT has more popularity than all the others, as it claims to offer another way to achieve peace, while proclaiming that it can perform better than the DPP in terms of economic welfare since they are capable of establishing better economic ties with China.
The last group within the KMT mainly consists of veterans and their descendants and is the least popular subgroup within the party. After having retreated from the mainland in 1949, this group of KMT members are die-hard supporters of reunification with China, as they still regard China as their home.
Given the “median voter theorem,” we might expect the KMT’s China policy will ultimately shift toward somewhere between the first and the second group. Yet the situation has not unfolded as the theory supposed, due to the structures and mechanisms within the KMT.
After retreating from China, the KMT veteran community established branches of the Huang Fu-hsing, a highly united group that loyally backed the political leaders who came over with them from China. Huang Fu-hsing members still firmly believe that ultimate reunification is the best option. Although their stance on cross-strait affairs is extreme compared to Taiwan’s general public, Huang Fu-hsing branches represent roughly 25 percent of the party member vote, and reportedly have a meticulous mechanism to allocate all their votes to serve various political aims. As a result, the organization became a comparatively strong power within the KMT. No one seeking to win the KMT’s chair position could ignore the voice of Huang Fu-hsing simply due to the fact that no single candidate could take the risk of losing 25 percent of the vote in the primary. If that occurred, a candidate would need more to secure more than two-thirds of the vote in the rest of the supporters to barely win the primary. Tus the Huang Fu-hsing must be courted – and the result is that the KMT’s most extreme voices on cross-strait relations have disproportionate clout within the party. Given this dynamic, the KMT’s leader will always to some extent support the most pro-China opinions.
Unfortunately, this rhetoric will not change because these KMT candidates all need support from the most extreme side within the party. As the opposition party, the KMT will still receive support from those who suffer from the economic hardships caused by COVID-19, but the party has provoked serious concerns both domestically and internationally about whether it will provide a China policy that can satisfy the Taiwanese people and the democratic world.
https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/why-taiwans-main-opposition-party-cant-shake-its-pro-china-stance/
2·3 days agoI’m curious to know the reason for the heptagonal shape of the cannons!
Merci !
Before being Chinese or Taiwanese, this island belongs to its indigenous groups who have inhabited it for a long time before all these waves of Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and Han colonization. Unfortunately these groups and their languages are marginalized today
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=asj
Presque tous les styles sont okay pour moi. Je vais y jeter un coup d’oeil !
Pas encore !
An anecdote about the president Park Chung-hee
Unit 684 (684부대),
The 209th Detachment, 2325th Group was founded on 1 April 1968 by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), the main intelligence agency of South Korea, on the orders of President Park Chung Hee.
was the only tier one special forces unit of the Republic of Korea Air Force (ROKAF) that specialized in black operation, direct action, irregular warfare, long-range penetration, and special operations that are extremely high-risk and dangerous. It was formed to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in 1968, in retaliation for the North’s botched Blue House raid.
The unit consisted of 31 civilian recruits, mostly petty criminals and unemployed youths, and underwent three years of harsh training on the island of Silmido. The assassination mission was cancelled in 1971 and the unit mutinied, resulting in a firefight in Seoul in which most of the members of the unit were killed. The four survivors were sentenced to death by a military tribunal and executed.
Members of Unit 684 endured three years of exceptionally harsh training, during which seven members died.
In addition
According to the Britain-based Observatory, “regime forces launched a counterattack” in Hama province on Wednesday with air support on the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels and allied factions. Government forces pushed HTS away from the provincial capital by about 10 kilometres (six miles), the Observatory said, reporting fierce battles as rebels failed in their bid to capture an area near the city.
One of my colleagues almost got hit recently, apparently he was crossing a pedestrian crossing, a woman was speeding up. He just had time to jump to the side! The woman was accompanied by a young woman (probably the one who alerted the driver) , they stopped and asked him “are you okay?!” after the driver told him she was sorry, that she hadn’t seen him -_-…
He told me that he had the reflex to jump, what would have happened with a child?
The interesting side of this story is that my colleague owns an (fucking) SUV…
Very interesting ! Thanks
101·20 days agoPourquoi pas Valls !! Manu X Manu 😁
In addition
Small island nations lead fight for climate justice at UN’s top court
Fittingly, the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu – heavily impacted by rising temperatures – opened proceedings at the Peace Palace in The Hague. The campaign to bring the issue before the UN’s top court began in 2019 with law students at the University of Vanuatu in Port Vila. Their drive led to a UN General Assembly resolution in 2023 asking the ICJ for a formal opinion on the legal obligations of states to protect the climate system.
The court will also consider whether large polluting nations can be held liable for damages to vulnerable countries like small island states. On the eve of the hearings in the Dutch city, students from Vanuatu gathered near the court along with other activists. “In small islands like Bonaire and like Vanuatu, there’s no time to say: ‘Oh, we hope that in 10, 15 or 20 years things will be settled’," Kjell Koon, from the Caribbean island of Bonaire, told RFI. “No, we need help now. We need a solution now and we need to create a world where we and future generations can live in peace and harmony.”
Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and the environment, said it was imperative that fossil fuels be phased out and more money provided to poorer nations bearing the brunt of climate change. “We are hoping the ICJ can provide a new avenue to break through the inertia we experience when trying to talk about climate justice,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Although the ICJ’s opinions are non-binding, they are legally and politically significant. Lawyers say the ICJ’s eventual ruling will likely be cited in lawsuits about the effects and impacts of climate change. Fiji’s Attorney General, Graham Leung, called the hearings an historic opportunity for small island developing states in their quest for justice.
The hearings follow the Cop29 summit, where a $300 billion climate finance plan by 2035 was criticised as inadequate by developing nations.
As well as small island states and developing countries, the court will also hear from the United States and China – the world’s top two emitters of greenhouse gases. The oil producer group OPEC will also give its views. The 15 judges at the ICJ will hear submissions until 13 December and deliver their decision next year.
“We represent communities where every fraction of a degree of warming translates to real losses: homes swallowed by the sea, crops destroyed by salinity, and cultures at risk of extinction,” said Dylan Kava, a regional facilitator for the Climate Action Network. “Pacific nations are left grappling with escalating costs of adaptation and recovery, often relying on meagre resources and the resilience of our people."
Sometimes I forget how stupid humans are.
No unfortunately I think about it every day.
4·24 days agoEt les ultra riches, ça se mange ou on en fait du composte?
Personally I never pay attention to the score.