"After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, most of the area comprising the present-day Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) became a de facto independent polity, independent from the rest of the Republic of China"
"At the time Political Tibet obtained de facto independence, its socio-economic and political systems resembled Medieval Europe.[29] Attempts by the 13th Dalai Lama between 1913 and 1933 to enlarge and modernize the Tibetan military had eventually failed, largely due to opposition from powerful aristocrats and monks"
I can forgive people for forgetting to mention that Baltic states were part of Russia for centuries before they were re-annexed by the USSR in 1945. Indeed I can see how people had 20 years of independence and weren't fans of being included into a socialist utopia. But, just yesterday I've read that Georgia had a "Bolshevik invasion of 1921". A province of Russian Empire for a really long time and up until 1917.
It looks like the free press thinks you can make legitimate territorial claims go away by not mentioning their existence.
Maybe that's not how all the people involved saw it, but we see, judge, and name events through the lens of our own values.
It does not give one an excuse to skip the whole history of the region and start it where it fits them. I wonder if their values include skipping uncomfortable trivia or highlighting it when appropriate.
With regards to values, the legitimacy of a 3 years old government is in deep doubt. The values you've mentioned repeatedly lead to political backing of seriously unpopular regimes just because they fit the narrative that was never true in the first place.
I do have to disagree on the notion that a government should have a historical or traditional basis to be legitimate. In my eyes it needs foremost the support of its "subjects". In reality, different factors make a stable government, but legitimacy is ultimately a value judgment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgi...
Also, this convention of not digging into a country's history can only ever work before it brings its history as a topic of conversation. In case of small, post-colonial countries that often happens on the first contact.
Wrong word.
"In Nystad, King Frederick I of Sweden formally recognized the transfer of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and Southeast Finland (Kexholms län and part of Karelian Isthmus) to Russia in exchange for two million silver thaler, while Russia returned the bulk of Finland to Swedish rule." [0]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tartu_(Estonia%E2%80...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian%E2%80%93Soviet_Peace_T...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Peac...
Wow, I didn't knew Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are located between Germany and Russia.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Map_used...
As to the "Judenfrei" status, that's a great deal due to the executions and mass deportations[2] that Russians unleashed after invading in 1940. First they banned all Jewish organizations, even fraternities and tennis clubs. Then they started targeting the professional class (politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc) to wipe out people capable of running the country and challenge the Russian rule. Their crime was officially designated as "being socially undesirable". Jews were overrepresented among the victims by a factor of 10. By the time Germans arrived in 1941, only 900 Jews were left in Estonia, as depicted on your map. Some had been deported, others ran away wherever they could. The last 900 remained because they believed that Germans couldn't be worse than the Russian terror of 1940-1941.
When Russians invaded again in 1944 and began their 50-year occupation of the country (which included another wave of terror and mass deportations[3]), they replaced German antisemitic policies with their own and continued suppressing Jewish culture until the very end of the USSR. The Jewish school in Tallinn, for example, opened in 1924, was closed by Germans in 1941, and only in 1990, as the USSR entered the final death spiral, got its confiscated real estate back and resumed teaching. So if you intended to be clever and play the Jewish card, you chose a very wrong place to do it. Germans had the holocaust in store for them, and for Russians they were exploiters of the working class, destined for Siberian labor camps.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Of course, it weren't these random religious small business owners but people significantly conditioned by the socialist regime, which they participated in creating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parrot_Speaking_Yiddish the movie highlights that fact: a Soviet military officer occupying Lithuania in 1939 turns out to be Jew, which does not preclude him from internment of the movie protagonist, also Jew and Polish army soldier at the time in the plot.
There's fair bit more history than the 20 years of independence squished by Russians in 1940. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were always very distinct from Russia in religion, language, culture, education and other key areas. A good example of this are literacy rates in European part of Russian empire recorded during 1897 census.[1] Even two centuries later, the effect of protestantism and the trace of school system established by Sweden is clearly visible. Moreover, Estonia and Latvia weren't even ruled by Russians, but by Baltic German nobility, and the main language used in administrative affairs was German.
Likewise, to portray Georgia as a mere "province of Russian Empire" is ridiculous given that they are so distinct that you cannot even read what they write, because they use a different alphabet. Finland or Georgia are no more "a part of Russia" than than Egypt and India are characterized by labeling them as "former British provinces" (with a subtext that they belong to Britain).
> the main language used in administrative affairs was German
> to portray Georgia as a mere "province of Russian Empire" is ridiculous given that they are so distinct that you cannot even read what they write
Please don't tell me that many Englishmen could read Devangari script or that many Frenchmen could read (pre-Latin) Vietnamese.
You may not like it today, but these territorial claims were seen as completely valid.
The subtexts that you are pinning on me are your own invention, I just say about unfaithful representation of history in the press.
What is the purpose of having to mention that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were in Russian Empire in the context of their invasion and occupation in the 1940s if not an attempt to give legitimacy to the invasions?
It's far more important to stress that the people on the Baltic coast are not Russians, have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them. The same applies to the many other indigenous Finno-Ugric peoples[1] on the other side of the border inside the present-day Russia who have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeoDW20WQAESJuZ?format=jpg&name=...
That wording already shows an unexpected amount of agitation that would prompt further inquires.
> have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline
That's mostly an unfaithful description of what's been happening, no. It also runs counter to the previous "have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them". If you really didn't want to be close to Russians you would get out of our hair for a chance.
Anyway, from your own link:
"The Sino-Vietnamese War was a brief conflict that occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, which ended the rule of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge. The conflict lasted for about a month, with China withdrawing its troops in March 1979."
In both other wars China helped their neighbors against Americans.
``` Number of countries invaded by China in the middle east: 0
Number of countries invaded by USA in the middle east: 3 and few more got bombed
I mean "This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.".. try to be a bit more self reflective. ```
I was pointing out that this seems to misrepresent the acts of China, due to its numerous armed conflicts with its neighbors in recent history. Though incidentally, this sidebar does seem also shore up the point for the "I can see it bleeding more territory to China" regardless. Here are more citations if you need them: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Mongolia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...
So which country has China invaded in the recent history? Bringing up events that happened more than hundred years ago looks strange.
Ahhhh, anti-China narrative is not working! China is evil, my western propaganda won't lie!