China vs. Taiwan: The Geography of an Unfinished War
jstribune.com
jstribune.com
edit: although I probably wouldn't trust the source when reading about Middle East conflicts...
It was never a plural maritime system. The question is whether the oceans in question are US-dominated or Chinese-dominated.
That said, China has a long record of doing business with anyone and avoiding ideological conflict on all issues except for specifically Taiwan. They did business with Pinochet's Argentina in the 80s, while Argentina was throwing socialists out of helicopters and China was still fully communist. Unless you're a pure American forpol shill, there's no reason to suspect they'd restrict free passage in their area.
...and Tibet, North Korea, Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Aksai Chin/Arunachal Pradesh, and others.
Relies on navigable seas means nothing in the context of seas becoming dominated by China. Then, they would have that, simply not in a cooperative way.
We could expect China to be extremely aggressive in asserting control over waters they dominate, because that is what they have done for decades. As aggressive as they can be.
They have a particular thing with Taiwan and they also insist on having a clear path to Singapore, which is a reasonable ask if you look at a map. Other than that, their record for decades has been non-interventionism. They are way less aggressive than every other security council member.
South China Sea aggression lists (I didn't say anything about a list of wars with names):
- https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/world/asia/diplomatic-res...
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/world/asia/south-china-se...
- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/15/world/asia/so...
Starting conventional wars in the style of Putin isn't necessarily the sign of good will or peace you appear to accept it as. And aggression can be defined in different ways. Aggression to hold their own order inside their current territories is another aspect of this. Suppression of their own populace is an aggression that exists around the clock, and has notably expanded in Hong Kong to disgusting levels in the last few years.
Threats to world powers who dare to speak up are another one, such as the one during Covid that threatened bluntly to pluck out one of the five eyes if they're not careful with their words to protect freedoms in HK. – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-54995227
Aggression within their own ranks is also visible, such as removing major military leaders recently under suspicion of not being "all in" in terms of loyalty to the CCP's wider project (whatever that is).
Chinese companies thrive in an entrepreneurial framework, then their leaders are routinely kidnapped if they speak out against the party's aims. Minority communities are sent to camps and sterilised. Tibet is under intense surveillance and constant dictates to move ancient towns somewhere else if it's in the way of say a new dam they want to build.
This deeply internal and covertly outwards aggression cannot stand. It's evil incarnate. Sneaky and covered over just-enough, but visible enough to see the nature clearly.
I don't know why the authors said "indo-pacific" in a scare piece about China, I think the Indian Ocean would be a lot less relevant to the topic.
jstribune.com about page:
> The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune is a journal representing Israeli and American views about international affairs.
Hm interesting. Lets see who runs it.
Editorial Board
-Ahmed Charai, Chair -- Owner of the site, on multiple thinktank boards such as the atlantic council
-Jacob Heilbrunn, Co-Chair -- Another fellow of the atlantic council
-Dr. Daniel Samet -- Daniel J. Samet is a Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
-Melinda Haring -- a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center
-Dr. Eran Lerman -- former IDF colonel and a lecturer at Shalem College
Board of Directors
-Gen. James Jones -- 21st national security advisor under Obama.
-Ahmed Charai -- owner of the site again
-Admiral James Foggo III -- former US navy Admiral. Nice retirement spot, James
Board of Advisors
-Hon. Dov Zakheim, Chairman -- Various positions under Reagan
-Hon. John Hamre -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hamre
-Gen. Yaakov Amidror -- former major general and National Security Advisor of Israel
-- got tired of the bit around here --
-Ambassador Anne W. Patterson
-Ambassador Eric Edelman
-Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan
-Ambassador Atul Keshap
-Gen. Ruth Yaron
-Dan Meridor
Anyway, the goal here was to point out articles like this don't come from journalistic backgrounds, but thinktank policy makers. The intention of pieces like this is to launder official government opinion as a semi-legitimate news source. Think "Radio Free Asia".
I'd play this game with those articles, where every article would cite a little essay like this on a similar thinktank site or the actual Zenz study. No new journalism, just rehashing reports like this.
This isn't a conspiracy, it's an industry made up of ex-insiders who maintain relationships and pedal the talking points.
And....you see that essays often include citations. And that's proof of a dark network of the illuminated?
Maybe these were all just essays?
> This isn't a conspiracy, it's
It's not X it's Y
Buddy....
Here's the author of the essay by the way: https://x.com/RaghuKondori/status/1877616501395505259?s=20
He has multiple books with AI covers, loony-adjacent nonsense ideology, prolifically posts on X @ing politicians and posting AI images.
He even has his own thinktank: https://shahvand.org/en/
He's also a Reza Pahlavi crank, you know, the Maryland Shah. https://shahvand.org/en/pahlavi-will-return/
Yes, China claims Taiwan and China are the same country. Not mentioned is that US policy also says that Taiwan and China are the same country. In fact Taiwan policy is that China and Taiwan are the same country. You would think reading this that Taiwan had declared independence from China as a separate country.
Also on the topic of "simply an island" - Taiwan is not just the island of Taiwan, they are on Kinmen island in the harbor of Xiamen on the mainland PRC. This would be like Manhattan receiving imperial proclamations about its "sovereignty" from China.
The fact is Taiwan was Chinese long before the United States even existed, just like the Russian Navy has been in Crimea since before the US existed. The US funded and armed separatist forces - but in 1900 the US was raising its flag in Beijing's imperial city. The historical development is these imperial intrusions have been pushed back by China. Taiwan is important to China and the US is too occupied blockading Cuba, slaughtering Venezuelan and Iranian leadership, aiding the genocide of Gaza and the invasions of Syria and Lebanon etc., while its health secretary fights against vaccines.
This is as useful as saying both South Korea and North Korea have the policy that South Korea and North Korea are the same country. Which was actually true until a few years ago.
When a foreign power controls a military of another nation, that's literally what occupation is.
Furthermore, the technical definition for "military occupation", according to Hague Convention, S.3 Art.43:
Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
Second, the US absolutely did invade Korea. In September 1945, the US Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) took over the southern half of the peninsula. It ruled for three full years, outlawed local people's committees, and kept using the old Japanese colonial bureaucracy. That is a textbook military occupation. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the US provided 90 percent of all combat forces and placed the South Korean military under the operational control of an American general. There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s. It was a literal dictatorship.
That control has never truly gone away. Today, South Korea is under de facto US military occupation. The US runs Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas US base on the planet, with its own postal service and currency. More importantly, the US controlled Combined Forces Command holds wartime operational control over the entire South Korean military. If fighting resumes, Seoul's army does not answer to Seoul, but to a four star American general. And a US dominated UN Command still publicly dictates what South Korea's parliament can legislate near the DMZ.
In regards to the occupation argument, actual military occupation requires a hostile army, in which US's didn't qualify, even with their outlawing of PCs (which don't serve as actual represention for the Korea's populace, specially in the North, after the Soviets' actual colonialist meddling over them). We can agree that US's attempt to reestablish order was poorly done (by incompetence and/or constraints), but it objectively doesn't fit the criteria for military occupation. We can relax the conventional definition to include US's control, but that would include the USSR over the North.
In the Korean War, while USA may have provided troops, this was done by the ROK's request. In multiple times, USA was more than willing to leave ROK should it ask (or even let them). Even your citation shows this. You also use the phrase "There weren't even any elections under the occupation until the late 80s" as if USA was responsible for this. USAMGIK was already gone, replaced by ROK proper. Also it's wrong. ROK had two de facto republican regimes (five de jure) prior to the current one, but they were plagued by coup. Still, they had elections. And that's only considering presidential elections. Also, none of this, aside from the organization of the first democractic election, involved the US. So it wasn't a singular dictatorship (specially in comparison to NK), much less one US-controlled.
Even the "de facto" current occupation is wrong. Did you mean to say "de jure"? CFC might give a US general control during wartime, but that hasn't been the case since December 1994, and this might change relatively soon, as noted by the article you linked. UNC only has enough legitimate authority to facilitate diplomacy and keep the armistice and, as far as I can tell, US hasn't abused it. Finally, the existence of a military base of a foreign country isn't an indication of de jure occupation, even less so de facto. Only when this foreign country uses it as pressure and that results in visible policy changes it becomes evidence of occupation. Has that happened?
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2023/09/02/...
In fact, both the majority of the Taiwanese people and the current government are against unification.